Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 109286 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109286 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
I look up at him, puzzled. “Microwaving?” Somehow I don’t think he means Hot Pockets.
“Yeah. Someone fucks up, you take him out to the field, throw a few tires around him, douse him in gasoline, and set the whole thing on fire. Leaves a nice smoky skidmark to warn everyone else not to make the same mistake.”
I swallow hard. That sounds worse than awful. And Daniel wants to go to this place? Alone? What if he never comes back? What if he leaves me here and I’m sitting with Pereya for weeks, wondering what happened? How long before Pereya decides to sell me to the highest bidder? “Sounds like a shitty place. I’m still going.”
“No,” Daniel says. “I’m in charge of keeping you safe. Taking you there won’t keep you safe. We’re in the middle of some primo gang territory around here.”
“I don’t care!”
“Well, if you don’t give a shit about your life, I do.”
I gasp. How can he say that to me? I’ve clawed and scrambled for every inch of freedom in the last two months. I’ve survived hell. In fact, I’m still trying to escape it. The fact that the one person I can trust is secretly trying to ditch me? It fills me with anger and fury and more than a little hurt. I slap his chest. “You think I don’t care if I live or die? Really?”
Daniel closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath. “Regan, you know what I’m trying to say here . . .”
“No, you’re saying shitty things to try to get rid of me. I know how you work. You lie and you try to piss people off so they’ll go away. I’m not going away, though. Remember your promise? ‘I’m not leaving you, Regan. I’m going to stay at your side and protect you, Regan.’ What happened to that?”
“It didn’t involve taking you to a killing ground when you can sit here quietly—”
“And what?” I cry, beating a fist on his chest. I’ve smacked him a few times as we argue, but he doesn’t raise a hand to me. I know I shouldn’t hit him; I’m just so fucking frustrated. “What happens if you don’t come back? How long before someone sells the cute American pussy to the highest bidder again?”
His mouth flattens. “You have to trust me, Regan.”
“Trust? Now who’s crazy?” I laugh bitterly and throw my hands up in the air. “You said I was acting crazy when I jumped you, but I’m not so sure. I can guarantee that if you were getting your dick wet, you’d move heaven and Earth to make sure I stayed at your side, instead of trying to ditch me. So now who’s crazy, huh?”
He reaches out and grabs the front of the flak jacket. I start to pull away, but he’s only tying together two strings at the neck that will keep it closed. “So,” he says flatly, “you want to talk about trust? How about you jumping all over me as soon as I close my eyes to try and manipulate me into keeping you around? How am I supposed to trust you after that?”
I’m shocked at his words, that he can turn the whole “trust” thing around on me and still make me wince after all this. It hits home. I have been manipulating him. “But . . . you like me,” I protest. “You think I’m sexy.”
“I do,” he agrees, tying the cord into a bow and then reaching for another one under my arm so he can fit the flak jacket tighter to my body. “I think you’re beautiful. I also think my appreciation of you is completely inappropriate, and I would never act on it. Have I done anything at all to make you uncomfortable? Acted inappropriately?”
Other than a few smacks on the ass and referring to me as baby doll? I want to point this out, but we both know it’s to rile me up and distract me, and he’s not serious about it. He’s right. He’s been nothing but good to me even when he doesn’t have to be. If he snapped his fingers, I’d be on my knees sucking his dick out of gratitude because I’d feel like it would get me somewhere with him.
How fucked up is that? And how fucked up is it that Daniel’s the Boy Scout in the situation and I’m the one throwing my body at him? Not that it matters. Sex is ruined for me. I don’t think I could ever touch a man again without thinking of the brothel.
But then I look at Daniel’s frowning mouth. He’s been straight-up appalled that I never had an orgasm. Curls his lip at Mike’s name as if he’s done me some sort of disservice. As if everyone else is the problem and not me. Not Work-Harder-to-Make-It-All-Better Regan who refuses to see problems in a relationship. Not Head-in-the-Sand Regan who tries to ignore the world so her little bubble isn’t disturbed.