Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 143453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
“Shut up.”
It’s two words. Merely two words and yet they hold so much punch that I tremble in his arms.
“Please…” I cradle his cheek, kiss his temple, his ethereal eyes, the ridge of his straight nose, the fullness of his lips, anywhere my mouth can find. “Please let go of your grudge, Creighton. Do it for yourself. Let that little kid go and stop being trapped in the past.”
He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even acknowledge me, and I want to cry.
Because I know, I just know that I’ve failed to change his mind, and now we’re just on a path of self-destruction.
“I hate you right now,” I murmur.
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“I wish I’d never loved you. I wish I could turn back time and unlove you.”
A cruel smirk tugs on his lips. “But you can’t. You love me, Annika. You never stopped.”
“That might be true, but I will find a way to stop.” I let my arms fall to my lap. “I’ll never love a man who’s intent on hurting my family.”
38
CREIGHTON
Annika has shut herself off from me ever since I fucked her against the sofa. With my hand around her nape and my cock tearing through her back hole.
That was two days ago.
Two days of constant silence and cold shoulders.
She hasn’t spoken a whole sentence to me since and the best thing I've gotten have been monosyllabic replies.
She hasn’t run with me on the beach.
Hasn’t even practiced her sacred ballet.
Hasn’t touched food unless I force her to eat.
Silent treatment.
But this is completely different from when I wouldn’t speak. That was part of my character, but whatever Annika has chosen to practice has nothing to do with her personality.
No one would accuse an annoyingly cheerful person like her of being quiet, but that’s exactly what she’s been the past couple of days.
She’s been slowly but surely falling into a dark tunnel that I can’t reach inside of.
Sighs have become her signature language and a lost gaze has been her standard look.
Every time I’ve tried to talk to her, she turns her face the other way. When I threatened to punish her, she told me to, “Do as you wish.”
Whenever I’ve touched her, she pushes me away and tells me not to put my hands on her anymore.
I’ve been so tempted to fuck her until she screams my name so she knows not to pull this stunt anymore, but something stops me.
The mixture of disgust and indifference on her face.
Lately, it’s veering more toward indifference.
People often say that hate is the most loathsome feeling, but that’s because they’ve never been on the receiving end of apathy.
When the person who holds my world in the palm of her hand acts like I mean nothing.
Like I don’t exist.
At first, I gave her space, tried not to push her too far, and thought she’d eventually come around.
Usually, there’s no way in fuck Annika would stop talking. It’s part of who she is, and the reason she got under my skin in the first place.
But the more time I’ve given her, the deeper she’s withdrawn into herself.
And I need to put an end to it.
I open my eyes with the very intention of doing just that. Today, I’m going to shake the fuck out of her and make her talk, even if I have to resort to drastic methods.
Doesn’t matter what lengths I have to go to in order to get actual sentences out of her.
I trace the spot beside me and freeze when my hand meets cold sheets. My eyes fly open, and sure enough, Annika is nowhere to be seen.
She tried to fight sleeping beside me at the beginning, but I wasn’t having it, so she just lay stiffly beside me. It was either that or I’d sleep curled all around her.
We’ve kept that routine every night. Only, she’s not here now.
I spring up from bed, pull on shorts, and throw on a T-shirt as I scan the room for her. The scent of violets permeates my nostrils, but they’re not as strong or as prominent as when she’s in my arms.
“Annika?” I call and head downstairs to the kitchen, to where she practices ballet in the hall, and then to the small library where she reads sometimes, or more accurately, makes me read to her since she’s lazy to do it herself.
However, there’s no sign of her.
My body tightens and a pungent taste fills the back of my throat. It’s the closest I’ve ever felt to…panic.
Even back then, back when my mother hung from the ceiling, and I couldn’t get air to my starved lungs, I didn’t feel panic. I had an otherworldly determination to breathe.
I needed to fucking breathe.
Which was why I crawled and crawled and crawled.
I’m running now, down the street and onto the beach. She’s not there.
Fuck.
She can’t possibly go to the small airport at the other side of the island without a car. And she doesn’t even know where it is in the first place.