Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 79261 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79261 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
“Puedo decir lo mismo por ti,” he argued that he could say the same for me.
I wasn’t surprised he spoke Spanish. Everyone in Miami did.
I gestured to the chair in front of me. “By all means, you know how to play Cuban Dominos?”
He sat, nodding. “I can hold my own.”
“Oh yeah? How about you put your money where your mouth is?”
“How much we talkin’?”
“Winner gets a g?”
He cocked his head to the side. “You want to bet a grand?”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “I’m assuming a bossman like you can afford it.”
“A bossman like me, huh? And what kind of man would that be?”
I eyed him up and down. “Look at you. Dressed in thousand-dollar suits and Louis Vuitton shoes in Havana? You asking to get mugged?”
He confidently spewed, “No one fucks with me.”
“Oh, that’s right…” I mocked. “You’re the big badass Jameson.”
“You know my name. It’s only fair I know yours.”
“Everyone knows your name.”
“And nobody knows yours.”
“I’m Duchess. That’s all anyone needs to know.”
“Alright.” He leaned into the table. “What are you doing in Cuba on a Thursday night?”
I was there for work. “I’m a jet-setter. You?”
“I’m a troublemaker.”
I leaned into the table, too. “And what kind of trouble are you getting into?”
“The kind that’s sittin’ right in front of me.”
“Oh, little ole me?” I grabbed my chest and fluttered my eyelashes. “Why, whatever do you mean?”
Curiosity got the best of him. “Darlin’, how old are you?”
“Old enough.”
“For what, exactly?”
I downed my drink. “Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.”
“Those are big words coming from such a little package.”
“Yeah… you must be used to holding little packages.”
He laughed, throwing his head back.
“I hate to break up this bonding moment and all.” I cunningly smiled. “But it’s getting past my bedtime. Are you in, or are you out?”
He met my eyes again. “I guess I have no choice but to say yes.”
“Listen, I’m a firm believer that no means no, so just say the word.”
“I’m in.”
For the next thirty minutes, we played an intense and concentrated game of dominos and just when I thought I was going to win, I lost. I was never one for losing, but I kept up my end of the bargain and pulled out my cell phone.
“What’s your Venmo? I can send it when I’m back in the States.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“A bet’s a bet.”
“I’ll take something else instead.”
My eyebrows pinched together, dropping my phone.
“I get to pick out one of your tats and have you tell me what it means.”
I scoffed. “You’d lose a grand to know what a tattoo means? Now that’s just bad business.”
“I like to live life on the edge.”
He stood, gravitating toward me like a magnet. His feet moved on their own accord. Each stride brought him closer to me before he finally broke the distance between us. Slowly, he skimmed his thumb down my clavicle bone, never losing contact with my skin. For a second, he ran his fingers back and forth along the date that was tattooed in Roman numerals.
“This one,” he simply stated. “I want to know about this one.”
He just stood there, waiting for me to share a piece of my soul with him as if it were nothing, when it was everything. His stare followed the movement of my tongue, watching me lick my lips—my mouth suddenly dry.
“What’s the date mean, Duchess?”
Time stood still for a moment, but the memory was relentless. It played out in front of me like it did anytime someone mentioned this tattoo. Maybe that was why I got it to begin with. I needed the punishment of it.
He must have noticed something was off about me. Rubbing the back of his fingers along my cheek, he questioned, “Where did you go?”
Those words were all I needed to shake off the daze and step away from him. “Those weren’t the rules, and since you won’t give me your Venmo, I’ll get it from someone else.”
“I already told you—I don’t want your money.”
“There’s a lot of things we don’t want in life, Jameson, but money is never one of them.”
With that, I turned around and left, jumping in my car. I made it a few blocks down the road before slamming on the brakes. The tires of my car slid across the pavement as I drove with a heavy heart and a guilty conscience. My thoughts were as unrelenting as I started moving again, needing to slow the fuck down, but I couldn’t do it. The adrenaline of what I wanted to feel began to kick in.
The high.
I rode the euphoria that was my memory, needing something, anything other than what I was feeling.
Emptiness.
Darkness.
Burying me alive.
Faster and faster and faster I sped.
Ninety-five miles per hour…
One hundred…
“Stop it!” I screamed, breathless and on my knees. “Please stop!”
Scenes played out in front of me again like they were happening right then and there.