Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 36965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
I part my lips, hoping Ezra will deepen the kiss and finally come undone just like I have. I hope he’ll ease up and realize it’s me, but that’s dreaming.
Ezra tugs my bottom lip between his teeth and draws blood. “I’m going to give you one chance, Fawn. End this nonsense and go back home.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do, Ezra Walker. You don’t own me.”
Ezra smirks. One hand continues to clasp my head against the ground while his other travels down the peaks of my breast, and his fingers press on the warmth of my core. My breath hitches, and my treasonous hips rise to meet his fiery touch.
“Oh, my little Fawn, I bet your pretty pink cunt would disagree with that statement.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” I lie.
My nipples harden, and a moan escapes my lips as Ezra bends his head to my neck and nips at my ear. “Fawn, I always thought you were a good girl.” Ezra pushes my panties to the side and presses the pad of his finger to my clit. “Apparently, I was wrong because you seem to be nothing more than a needy little slut.”
His fingers move from my clit, and he penetrates me. One finger, and then another. He moves inside me slowly at first, but then his speed increases. I should knee him in the balls and tell him to go to hell, but it’s Ezra, and he’s finally touching me.
“Fuck, Fawn, your pussy is so tight.” He pulls out of me and rubs his index finger along my lips before he licks it with the tip of his tongue. “Fawn, my mother always told me it’s not polite to play with my food, but that’s all I seem to want to do with you.”
My eyes widen as he pulls out a switchblade from his pocket. “What are you doing with that, Ezra?”
He glides the tip of the blade along my collarbone, pressing enough to speed up my heart rate but not enough to cause the slightest scratch on my skin. “Are you sure you want to play? I won’t go easy on you, Fawn.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
Ezra’s gaze moves from my eyes to my lips and back again. “Eternal darkness for me and perpetual pain for you.”
“I need some control, Ezra. Right now, I’m a damn pawn. My father used me in a game of chicken, and I’m the one who lost. He’s going to sell me off, and there won’t be anything I can do about it. At least with you, no matter how bad it gets, it’s my choice. Let me have a choice.”
When you have no options in life, time ticks by at a snail’s pace. That’s what this moment with Ezra is—a slow, methodical form of torture. Us breathing in the silence, and me waiting on the ledge of a cliff about to fall and hoping he’ll save me.
He’s a white canvas, bare of passion, direction, or influence, and I’m the paint begging him to use me.
Ezra rolls off me, rises to his feet, and offers me his hand.
I want to curse him out, curse out God, humanity, nature, and everything in the known world for making this my life. I’ll never experience happiness. I’ll never have independence. I’ll never be able to be myself.
He offers his hand to me, and in my defeat, I take it. I’m about to head back to the house when he pulls me to him, and I barrel straight into his hard chest. My eyes shut at the gentleness of his fingertips as he brushes my hair behind my ears.
He bends until his mouth is by the shell of my ear and whispers, “Run.”
Chapter 2
Briar
(Five Years Ago)
My world’s consumed with misogyny. It’s a frigid place where men rule, and women take the scraps thrown at them. But I don’t want to be one of these women. I want to rule my life how I deem fit. To be the narrator of my story. The captain of my ship, holding onto the sails and forging them with might to face strong winds and survive. Women in my world don’t survive; they eventually get beaten until nothing remains of who they once were.
So as the warm breeze caresses my hair, and the leaves from the tree branches dance in the wind, I run so I don’t lose who I am.
Ezra would say his life’s no better because he can’t make the choices he wants. But at least he will never be a commodity, sold to the highest bidder to enhance the family's assets. They don’t consider women in my world human. We’re pawns on the chessboard, sacrificed for the king and his survival.
“Run, Fawn, run!” Words Ezra yelled when we chased each other through the maze of trees surrounding the property all those years ago.