Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
It was wrong dragging her into this, but I didn’t have a lot of options. If I was going to do this, I needed evidence, and I was pretty sure I knew where to find it.
“There’s a fake bottom in the safe, and there’s a leather case in there that has a lock.”
I’d seen Jarek bring it in and out of his office many times over the years.
“What’s in it?” she whispered.
I hesitated, then said, “I don’t know exactly, but I’m certain it’s my freedom.”
Taylor sobered, her voice sincere, “We’ll get it. I promise. It’s not right, what Papa does. The way these men treat us. Like we’re objects to be sold. I won’t do it, and I’ll stand beside you when you walk away. It’s time we make a stand. Fuck ’em.”
She was right.
Fuck them.
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it away to look at the text that had come in.
Logan: Be ready in an hour. Wear the red dress I bought you.
I didn’t know how he’d gotten my number, or when he’d added his contact information to my phone, but a tremor of anticipation rolled down my spine.
A need that glowed like a beacon from the abyss where I’d tumbled.
I should tell him, no. That all of this was a bad idea, and I would leave and do it on my own.
But rather than climbing out of this pit, rather than letting him go and setting him free, I was only dragging him deeper.
I stood in front of the full-length mirror looking at my reflection. I’d donned the red dress. It had the deepest, plunging neckline I’d ever seen, halfway down my midriff where it nearly touched my belly button. It exposed the inside curve of my breasts that were covered by the thin, silky fabric.
A slit ran up the side to the top of my thigh, ending only a second before it became obscene.
I’d paired it with the black strappy stilettos that had arrived with the rest. My hair was down, done in fat, full curls that bounced around my shoulders and landed in the middle of my back.
I felt beautiful.
Sexy.
At least I shivered at the thought that Logan might see me that way. That maybe it was what he’d envisioned when he’d picked it out.
I blew out a sigh as I glanced at the huge round clock that hung on the far wall of the room.
Two minutes.
They passed like stagnant honey, sweet and deploring, like as the seconds dragged, they begged me to come to my senses.
But as I waited for Logan to arrive back home to whisk me away to wherever we were going, I felt the faint vestiges of who I’d once been skim through my consciousness.
For a moment, I remembered what it’d felt like to hope. When I’d woken each morning with a blaze of excitement in my belly. When I’d loved to be touched by a man who’d touched me in a way no one else but he could do. Before I’d realized the true meaning of what losing something you loved meant.
I drew in a deep breath to contain it, to hold it back before it busted free.
Then that control was slipping when I heard the two slight knocks on the door before it drifted open.
Logan stood there.
The master of my universe.
The one who made me question it all.
He wore the same suit he’d been wearing this morning when he’d left.
He didn’t need to change.
He was the most striking man I’d ever seen.
Then.
Now.
Forever.
Black hair effortlessly mussed, his jaw shadowed by his short, trimmed beard. Everything about him was potent.
Provocative.
A temptation that felt impossible to resist.
A lure that called and pleaded and tempted from the doorway.
He leaned against the doorjamb and let his eyes rake over me as if that was what they were made to do, as if looking at me supplied him with the necessities he needed to breathe.
His nostrils flared. “I imagined you in that dress, and my imagination didn’t come close to doing you justice.”
Redness flushed, and I spread my palm down the bodice as if it could smooth out my emotions that were racing wild. “Do you like it?”
Foolish girl, inviting the pain.
I didn’t know how to stop.
Logan straightened to his full height and took one step forward. Overpowering. Mind bending. Every single thing I’d once thought right.
“Do I like it?” His voice was close to a growl. “I’d forgotten what beauty really was until I found you standing in that basement.”
Heat flashed.
“Logan…we need to be careful.”
“Fuck being careful.”
He prowled my way. Every step he took sent a reverberation across the floor.
His hand landed on my hip, and he angled down to get in my face. “And for the record, there is nothing careful about the way you look.”
I stared up at him. “What if I asked you to be?”