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PROLOGUE

E: Meet me at the club in 10 minutes Please don’t be mad

I reread Erica’s text until

Fucking hell

The club she was referring to could only be one My knuckles hite, as if gripping the phone on the brink of crushing itin a deep breath that did nothing to calm me, I pulled up her number and held the phone toof curses that would fly if she picked up I knew she wouldn’t

The war the wo fact that she wasn’t picking up the fucking phone I hung up and grabbedno time, pushed my way into the rush hour traffic

Checking the ti she’d be there without me Ten or fifteen o down in that span of tiround establishment I’d known for years as La Perle

She’d be prey

If I were lurking in the shadows there as I’d done more times than I cared to admit, that’s all I would see in her A little blond boh fire to make a Do blind not to want to bring her to her knees

I hit the gas and swerved, bypassing a cluster of slowing cars that put precious tihts, so did unwanted memories of the club I hadn’t stepped foot in there since I o back to that life My jaw clenched as I thought of everything that had played out there, countlessback for, years after I left Sophia Everything about the place was charged with the pro in the air between every bated breath and less-than-innocent exchange

My chest was painfully tight Anger was there The teeth-gnashing frustration that only Erica could elicit But under all of it was love Love for Erica that set h I wanted her far fro her in the club and being theiht, she never made it easy, but hell if she didn’t subht

I hit the brake at a red light I closedup at me with those hooded blue eyes, endless oceans All that hellfire spirit teive her And I always gave her more than she could handle I never let her rest until she was sated Until I saw the wonder in her eyes that only I could put there, having pushed her to a place no one had ever taken her Until the only word she could form was my name

We were never short on passion We couldn’t keep our hands off of each other Adrenaline raced over the fatigue that had settled into ht I could fuck the woh She’d pro her well every day this life would give me

Love was a small word for what I felt for Erica Maybe it was an obsession, this never-waning determination to make her mine in every way she’d let me Heath had noticed, even warned er to addiction, and no one could deny that she wasI refused to live without, no ht like hell to keep the upper hand between us to protect her, to keep her out of the path of those ould hurt one to destroy the other I couldn’t lose control and risk losing so more important—the one person who’d co

Yes, she’d changed e She’d pushed me She’d walked into my life, five-feet-three inches of fiery independence Herme habitually hard until I could find the unexplainable peace that being inside her supple little body could bring Even now, I could barely take a full breath, knowing she was beyond hter My bloodless fingertips tingled with the need to feel her body under the her