Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 67755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 339(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 339(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
I fight with everything I have, letting out a scream of frustration and despair that all my stellar escape efforts are going to waste. I lash out and kick at him, but it’s futile. Alden handles me easily. He hauls me up, throwing me over his shoulder like a nasty old bag of potatoes. I’m so stunned at being turned upside down that it takes me a good long moment to reorient myself and get the blood flowing properly to come up with Plan B.
Although by now, I might be on Plan X. It turns out I couldn’t wash myself down the bathtub drain when I was having a bath like I wished I could. Sewer escapes are much, much harder than anyone gives them credit for.
Suddenly, against my will, my eyes fly open, and I stop thrashing. Hello, Alden’s tight ass. What? No, stop looking at his ass. But it’s a perfect angle. No, it doesn’t matter. Stop. Right. Now. It’s a good thing I don’t listen to the good voice in my head and go instead with the devil’s whispers. I reach down—no, not to touch the world’s most perfect ass contained within a set of very nice, expensive black pants. I’m not going to stroke the dang thing like it’s a purring cat. Alright, so if I did, I think I’d be the purring cat, but that’s beside the point. I open my hand in a lobster-like claw, and when Alden steps just right, I grasp. Hard. I grab his left cheek and pinch for all I’m worth.
He yelps.
Apparently, I’ve timed it just right because he was just passing the pool. As he yelps, he sidesteps, trips, and can’t right himself when I throw my weight to the side, throwing us both off balance. He pitches over, and I go with him. Straight into the pool.
His thick arms release my waist as we fall. I kick out in mid-air, and my foot connects with something solid, but that’s all I have time for before a wall of water comes at me. It’s tepid, lukewarm, and hot from the scorching Florida summer days. Any Seaside girl worth her salt knows how to swim and swim well since we’re practically raised in the water here. A few hard kicks take me straight to the surface. I swim fast, hoping I can leap out and still make it to the fence to try and get over it.
I swim hard for the edge of the pool, and when I haul myself over it and out, dripping wet, the baggy, sodden clothes weighing me down, I look over my shoulder. Alden hasn’t surfaced. None of his goons are out here, either. Where are they? I know I won’t make it over the wall in these stupid sweats, so I shed them fast. The T-shirt still goes down to my knees. Right now, I’m not worried about modesty. Instead, I’m worried about running for my life.
But where is Alden?
The pool is a larger rectangle, and we went into the deep end.
I know I should run, but there’s this other part of me that can’t just leave someone to drown. As I’m debating about jumping back in, a black form surfaces in the middle of the pool. But facedown.
I don’t think. I leap back in, diving gracefully and swimming with powerful strides. I clasp Alden around the shoulders and turn his still form over, getting his face out of the water. I never took any lifeguard courses, but it’s easy enough for me to swim with him to the side of the pool. Dragging him out is harder. I have to prop him up, then get out and clasp him under the armpits. He weighs more than a small car, but eventually, I get half of him out. I set him there on the concrete edge, but he doesn’t move. He’s not blue or anything, and he’s not gray. He looks normal, but he doesn’t appear to be breathing.
On instinct, I drop down to my knees. I clasp his face in my hands, ready to clear his airway, give him mouth-to-mouth, and start chest compressions if I have to, but then his midnight eyes— those black eyes with all the starry lights swimming in their depths—fly open. His lips arch into a wicked grin, and his arms wrap around my waist.
“I just wanted to see what you would do,” he rasps before he swings neatly out of the pool, tucks himself below me, and tugs my face to his.
Our mouths meet like an explosion, and I’m too shocked to fight him. He kisses me with his wicked tongue sweeping through the seam in my lips, finding mine, and stroking it in a burning slide that sends heat rushing through my veins. Alarms blare loudly in my brain, but my lips are tingling, and my lady bits are thoroughly enjoying themselves. The kiss is powerful enough to knock me half senseless, but only half.