Bluff : Book 2 of the Complicated Parts Series by Ashley Jade

Author:Ashley Jade [Jade, Ashley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-29T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 11

A blood-curdling scream coming from Kit’s bedroom has me lurching up from the couch ready to slaughter someone.

She screams again as I enter her room and the sound along with the way she’s clutching the poker chip on her necklace for dear life shreds me.

I’m almost positive she’s having a nightmare, but just to be sure, I scan the room and make sure the window is locked.

“No.” A choked sob rips from her throat and she kicks her legs. “Please don’t kill me.”

I’m about to reassure her I’d never lay a hand on her, let alone kill her, but she starts flapping her arms and cries out again. Only this time—it’s my name on her lips.

Shudders are wracking her small frame, whipping her around the mattress like a plastic bag in the middle of a hurricane. I want to grab her, shake her out of it, and tell her it’s only a dream.

Instead, I approach her bed carefully, like she’s a bomb about to detonate. “You’re okay, Kit.”

It’s like she doesn’t even hear me. If anything, me speaking only makes it worse. Her tremors grow more violent and so do the screams.

Seeing her like this is the equivalent of someone cutting my chest open with a shard of dull glass.

When she yells for me again, I don’t hesitate. I wrap my arms around her as though she were a wild animal needing to be tamed.

She struggles for the first minute, kicking and thrashing, but then she goes limp and blinks up at me.

“Preston?” Her voice is laced with panic and her body feels cold despite her sweat soaked skin. “Is it really you this time?”

She looks so confused and helpless, something inside me unhinges. “It’s me, angry girl.”

I loosen my grip so she can move freely again and she bolts upright. “It wasn’t before…it was a trick and I couldn’t—”

“You’re safe. It was just a bad dream.” I palm her cheek. “You know I’d never let anything happen to you.”

I’m not a good person and most of the time I deserve the bad shit that comes my way, but Kit’s my proverbial line you don’t cross.

Not unless you have a death wish.

She nods slowly…and then to both my horror and concern she throws her arms around me—clinging to me like I’m her lifeline as her soft sobs fill the room.

I’m at a loss for words, but given her heart rate and breathing are still erratic, I do the only thing I can think of—I situate us so she’s resting against my bare chest and we’re skin to skin.

Then I trace my fingers up and down her spine until her crying slows down and she stabilizes.

“Thank you.” Her voice is burnt toast. “God, you must think I’m crazy.”

“If it’s any consolation, I thought that way before tonight.”

“Asshole,” she says, but there’s humor in her tone.

She shifts slightly, and I get a whiff of her hair, that intoxicating berry concoction going straight to all the places they shouldn’t. “You want to talk about it?”

“Not really.

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