Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 154882 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154882 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Like Sunny, I thought. This is both a showroom and a fantasy indulgence. Sunny is the man flirting and cracking jokes, as well as the man shoving a gun down someone’s throat.
“Ahem.” Turning, I faced a tall, sturdy woman with a severe bob and raised brow. “Hello, my name is Bethany Fuller. I’m the house manager. Shoes off, please.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” Sienna and I peeled off our tatty sneakers. I tried to hide the holes in my once white, now gray socks as more people emerged from various parts of the apartment. Two women in aprons stuck their heads out of the kitchen. Another dressed in scrubs emerged from a bedroom. I blinked at the figure that stepped out after her.
I flew to my hair, unconsciously brushing back the hopeless mess. He caught the movement and raised a straight, blond brow as if he knew exactly why I did it.
A crisp, stain-defying white dress shirt clung to the dips and mounds of his impressively muscled frame. I used to roll my eyes at guys wearing shirts two sizes too small, showing off their five-times-a-week trips to the gym. Looking at him and the black slacks that left nothing to the imagination, I took back every snarky thought and comment. When you put that much work into looking this deadly gorgeous, it was a crime to hide it.
Honey, almost feline gold eyes traveled over my wide nose and red lips as my gaze caressed his sharp cheekbones and square jaw. In my former line of work, handsome men were a dime a dozen. I built an immunity long ago.
River ignited the symptoms. Sunny set off the fever. This stranger battered my system.
Sunny rolled out in a wheelchair, low-slung cotton pants, and nothing else. He saw me and smiled like Christmas came early.
Immunity gone.
“Angel,” he said brightly, despite the wheelchair, bandages, and IV rolling behind him. Already his color was returning. “This is everyone. Everyone, Angel.”
“Kenzie,” I corrected, face heating. I couldn’t say why that nickname felt so intimate, but having him introduce me by the name did something to my pulse. “Hello, everyone. Sunny, I’m glad you’re on your feet—actually, on your ass. Big improvement from face down.”
He laughed. “You’re telling me.”
“Really, I’m happy to see you in safe hands. We’ve got to get going though, so let me draw that sketch for you, and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“What’s the rush?” His study done, the handsome stranger spoke—no sign of his conclusions on his face. “I’m told you rescued Sole, got him medical treatment, and saw his attacker. I’d very much like to hear the entire story from you.”
“I told your guard, Thatcher, everything.”
His blink was a slow, lazy movement. “Doesn’t change what I said.”
“I’m sorry, who are you?”
Sunny slung an arm around his waist. “This is my big bro, Liam.” He looked to be in his thirties. “Can’t you see the resemblance?”
“Uh... no.” I wouldn’t have pegged these two as brothers even if I saw them come out of the same woman myself. One look at Sunny evoked the rolling Tuscan hills and ancient monuments claimed by his ancestors. In Liam, I saw stone castles and wild, rugged landscapes. The only thing that set them apart from other people and connected them to each other were the waves and coils in their thick hair.
“We get that all the time.”
“Where were you when Sunny was thrown?” Liam got straight to the point.
“Two feet away. He came down right in front of me.”
“Three seconds sooner he would’ve come down on top of me,” Sienna added.
Liam extracted himself from Sunny’s hold, approaching me. “And you say you got a good enough look at his face to describe him?”
“I did.”
“Even though he was sixteen feet up, it was early in the morning, and he would’ve ducked out of sight when he noticed you both. In that half a second, you got a clear view of his face?”
I swallowed a few times, heart thumping as he came near, near, nearer. Liam towered over me with hardly an inch between us, dominating two of my senses, and evoking forbidden images of what he could do to the other three.
Stop lusting over a man who is basically calling you a liar.
“How many times do you want me to say yes? What? You don’t believe me? Give me paper and a pencil, I’ll draw him.”
“You’ll draw a face.” His words were as slow and languid as the relaxed aura that cloaked him. Instead of putting me at ease, it made me picture a predator creeping through the high grass—patiently waiting for its moment to strike. “Whether or not it’s the attacker’s face...”
His unfinished statement stiffened my spine.
“What were you doing under that bridge?”
I held out my hands. “What do you think?”
“Hmm, plausible,” he drawled. “Still, it’s incredible to me that after the time, effort, and planning that must’ve gone into Sole’s attack, the assassin was suddenly struck stupid and didn’t look down to see if there was anyone nearby.”