Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
So bad. So much. When I feel the gentle press of his mouth to mine, my lips part and I taste cinnamon and sweetness and salt—and Stone. Everything I want, everything I need.
“Just like that,” he says huskily against my mouth. “I’d fucking love to go back to that with you. To where we were before all this rot got into me, before all the lies. You want to start over, too?”
Longing spills through me. My breath shudders as I nod.
He gently lays a string of kisses along the line of my jaw. “So tell me what to call you.”
Grief freezes me in place, ice that immediately cracks into painful sharp pieces. Because nothing is the same. But nothing has changed. And I can’t go back.
“Cherry,” I lie.
His body tenses. His hand fists in my hair, and I gasp when he pulls my head back, forcing to meet his cold, cold gaze.
“That was the wrong fucking answer,” he grits out, and surges up out of the chair. Carrying me with him—and snatching up the fun bag. “Because that girl, I figure she was trapped in a bad situation and in way over her head, but trying to do the best she could. That girl doesn’t owe me a damn thing. But Cherry, she was just saving her own skin. And she owes me everything.”
I do. I know I do. So I’ll pay.
He sets me on my feet in front of the bed, stares down at me. I stare back, chin lifted and jaw set, determined to see this through despite the trembling wracking my body.
His eyes narrow on my shaking fingers. “Sure you don’t want to try again?”
“I’m sure. I’ll pay what I owe. Then you let me go.”
“Let you go?” Lips whitening, he bends closer to snarl into my face, “I’ll let you go when I get answers out of you.”
“Then good luck, because I don’t have any!” I snap, then shove against his chest. “So just get on with it!”
He does, shoving me back—not even hard, but I go sprawling across the bed, my shirt flying up and thighs splayed wide. Oh my god. Getting me right into the perfect position for a fucking. But then he just stands there.
Trying to open the clamshell packaging on the ball gag.
I snort out a laugh, closing my legs, pulling my hem down. “You can’t get answers with that anyway. Remember?”
“Just take off that damn shirt.” Frustration hardens his face as he grips the edge of the package, and the plastic tears between his big hands with a horrible screech. He tosses the gag to the bed, pulls off his own shirt. “And spread your legs.”
“Why?” I pick up the red ball, the straps dangling. “Since you need my mouth to make me talk, are you gonna gag my vagina, instead? But how will you fuck me, then? God, I’m starting to think you’re not very good at this ‘making me pay’ thing.”
His hands go still on his belt buckle, head bowed and teeth gritted as if trying not to laugh. The he shakes his head, opens his belt and tears the leather from the loops. “You think you have any fucking idea how I’ll make you pay? You think you know what’s coming?”
I chortle. “Probably not me!”
He lunges toward the bed, eyes feral. I shriek when he’s suddenly on top of me, denim-covered knees planted on either side of my hips, hands cupping my face.
“God fucking damn your fucking mouth.” His chest heaving, he bends his forehead to mine, his eyes closed. “I don’t know what’s worse. You lying with every word, or how you keep making me like you.”
My heart squeezes into nothing. “Probably that you like me,” I whisper, releasing the gag to skim the backs of my fingers down his whisker-roughened jaw. “Or the lying wouldn’t matter.”
“Luckily, I’ve got a solution to both.” Hard fingers grip my wrist. “And don’t touch me.”
With my dead fish hands. Hurt spearing through me, I push at him—then struggle more when I realize what his solution to the problem of my mouth is. Because I’ll pay what I owe but it’s still not easy to let him gag me. I jerk my head to the side when he attempts to fasten it, pushing at the smooth rubber with my tongue, trying to dislodge the ball.
“Fuck yeah, girl,” he groans harshly, pinning me down with his weight. “Keep fighting me.”
Thorny need scores my senses at that rough command. He wants me to fight? I’ll fight. Wildly when he pulls straps out of the fun bag and ties my wrist to the wrought iron bedpost, and I use my left hand to yank at the gag. Then I’m pinned beneath him again while he fastens my left hand. I squirm and buck, his erection a solid rod behind his zipper and lodged right between my thighs, and the fighting feels so good.