Total pages in book: 176
Estimated words: 167257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 558(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 558(@300wpm)
He stared at me for so long that I began to question if he’d even heard a word I’d said until he spoke. “Are you done?”
I blew air out through my nose and reminded myself that hitting my boss was a fireable offense. “Yes,” I chewed out.
“Good. I brought you lunch,” he announced as if it were a normal thing for him to do. “I thought we could eat together and get some shit understood—”
“Oh,” I said before he could finish. “That’s…nice of you. I guess that would be ok—”
“Until I found this,” he interrupted right back. I frowned my confusion until he picked up the empty water bottle I’d forgotten to take with me upstairs.
Shit.
The way I saw it, I had two choices—I could apologize and throw myself at his mercy, or I could play it cool and lie my ass off. “What about it?” I asked, choosing the latter.
“I don’t appreciate being stolen from.”
“I’d hardly call quenching a thirst theft. Besides, I bought that from the corner store down the street.”
“That’s cap, and you know it. One, they don’t sell this brand in Lee’s. Two…” He lifted the bottle, showing me the bottom and the R written on the clear plastic in black marker.
“You marked your water? Who the hell marks their food, you obsessive-compulsive jerk?”
Rowdy gave me another blank look. “I don’t, but when you got pissed off yesterday because I told your spoiled ass no, I put my initials on all of them to see what you would do.”
My mouth fell open. “You set a trap for me.”
“And you fell right into it.” He tossed the clipboard and empty bottle back onto the table and straightened. “So let’s get this over with. Take your pants and panties off and bend over the table.”
My stomach dipped, and I shifted on my feet. “Um…what?”
“You heard what I said, Atlas.” His hands fell to his belt, and he began to undo it. The sound of the buckle clinking barely registered over my pounding heart. “Get your ass over here.”
“I’m not fucking you.”
Rowdy gave a dry laugh. “You think that’s what this is about?” He shook his head and stalked forward. “Nah. I don’t stick my dick in disobedient pussy. I’m going to do what your father should have done a long time ago and saved me the fucking headache.”
He yanked his belt free of the loops of his pants, making his intentions clear.
The stockroom faded away at his mention of my father, and suddenly, I was transported across time and space back to the hospital room where my father had died.
The last place I saw him alive.
My incorporeal form stood in the corner as I watched a past version of myself call him a liar and swore never to forgive him before storming out the room while he struggled for the strength to beg me not to go.
The memory faded and shifted to my parents’ bedroom. My mom lying in bed, disheveled, gaunt, and haunted. And me, begging like my father had begged and then screaming because she’d chosen to give up.
My dad was dead.
Mom was fading away.
And I’d abandoned them both.
I deserved whatever punishment Rowdy wanted to give me.
The revelation caused my mind to snap back into my body, where I stood in the stockroom across from Rowdy. I blinked, and my vision cleared enough to see Rowdy pause and then swear as if he, too, had realized what he’d said.
But how?
He couldn’t have known my father was dead unless Roc or Golden had told him. Rowdy looked like he was getting ready to speak until I beat him to the punch.
“Okay.”
His shoulder’s stiffened as he watched me warily. “Okay?”
“Punish me,” I clarified and started forward, my hands undoing my jeans as I came to stand next to him. “Make it hurt.” I could see a thousand emotions warring in his eyes when I shoved down my pants and stepped out of them. “I won’t fight you.”
“Atlas…”
“Please,” I whispered, the pain lacing my voice too thick to conceal. I held his gaze until he nodded, and then my panties joined my jeans on the floor. I paused, and then for good measure, I lifted my shirt over my head for some reason but left my bra on.
Without another word, I bent over the table and placed my cheek on the cold metal surface, exposing my ass and pussy to the open door in full view of the table.
It dawned on me then that anyone could walk in and catch us.
I didn’t care.
I closed my eyes and waited for the pain to come and absolve my guilt.
It wouldn’t, but I could hope.
A soft experimental caress across my right flank was the only thing I felt a moment later.
“Please,” I begged again. I could already feel the mood shifting from angry to something…not. “You promised.”