Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
She stands, taking her gorgeous legs with her as she answers the phone. Even when she says, “Hey, Mom,” the savage part of me is still staring at her thick legs, her ass shaped by the shirt. She leaves the room, and I go outside again.
She trusts me, clearly. She believes me when I say I’m going to keep her safe. She’s been calm throughout this, showing me more fear of her dad’s reaction than any Cartel killer or creep sadist. As I start shoveling snow again, my thoughts return to last night, the sex Emma and I had, the closeness of melting into each other, with nothing between us.
She’s said nothing about the lack of a condom. Neither have I, but I remember how she felt, how her tight pussy wrapped around my naked dick. She took every inch: nothing between us, just our bodies and the future. What future, though? Where do I think we’re going to go, exactly?
Once I’ve cleared the vehicle, I go back inside. Emma is painting, talking on loudspeaker. “I’m not sure exactly,” she’s saying. “Somewhere in Maine.”
“You don’t know?” a woman says, laughing, presumably one of Emma’s friends.
“All I know is it’s snowy and beautiful, and there’s lots to paint.”
Emma turns, offers me a small smile, then gestures to the table. She’s the best. There’s another mug of steaming coffee. I sit at the table, drinking it, feeling a domestic sort of peace wash over me. I know it’ll be time for fighting again soon, but now, I feel I’m right where I belong.
However, soon, I’ll have to make a choice. I sit at the table for a long time, long after I’ve finished my coffee, almost willing the tablet to make an alert noise. That will tell me it’s time to go out to the decoy and that they’ve walked right into my trap. After that, I’ll have to be dark again and be the animal this world has forced me to become. This time, I’ll be even more fierce. My family has never been on the line before.
I stand, pushing my chair back, causing Rusty to bark at me. What am I thinking, my family? What family? I once thought of Mike as a brother, but I can’t do that now, not after what we did.
“Is everything okay?” Emma comes running into the living room.
I’ve been so lost in thought that I didn’t even realize she’d left the room. I’ve been sitting here for—I check the clock—over an hour, trying to convince myself this can somehow work, trying to convince myself I’m not completely evil for what I did and what I still want to do.
“Fine,” I tell her.
“Why is Rusty barking?”
“I think I startled him,” I say. “I got lost in thought.”
“In thought,” she murmurs, looking at me pointedly.
“About us,” I tell her. “About how this ends.”
“How does it end?”
She walks toward me but stops a few feet away, almost like she thinks I’ll reject her. I can’t stop myself from closing the distance between us, wrapping my arms around and holding her close. She clings to me, resting her cheek against my chest as if this is about to end.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “That’s what’s driving me nuts. Usually, I know, or I have a pretty good idea. Enough to formulate a plan, but I can’t see the eventualities with us. I can’t guess where this is going to end. I want to so badly, but I just can’t. Any time I think of telling Mike, it ends badly.”
“Yeah,” she sighs, not taking her face from my chest. I have to listen closely, and I can feel her warm breath through the fabric of my shirt. “When I talked to Mom earlier, I tried to think of that. What it would be like if everybody knew.”
“It’s hard,” I say.
“Yeah. It was easier when we were trapped.”
I kiss the top of her head, moving my hand down her arm and taking her hand. She looks up at me with glistening eyes as if she’s ready to cry to release some tension and uncertainty. I wonder how she’d react if I told her about Mike. Dammit, I hate lying to her, but I can’t betray Mike again.
“Then maybe we should do what you said,” she murmurs. “We’ll figure out what to do when this is all over. When we’re safe.”
“You’re always going to be safe,” I say, and then my tablet blares an alarm from the counter. I take a step away from Emma. My instincts run cold. I feel my heartbeat slowing down. My focus hones down to a fine point. “You need to do exactly as I say.”
Emma looks up at me, eyes wide, sensing the change in me. She knows the difference between the romantic Jacob and the Jacob who’s ready to kill. It’s an insane thought, but I feel like Emma knows me better than anybody.