Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
The only reason he would admit to that would be if he were drunk. His gaze held mine as he yanked Kyle closer. “Whose turn is it, Chewbacca?”
“Lola’s.”
I glared at my ex, wanting him to go stick his dick in a wasp’s nest until it fell off and he could never fuck another girl ever again. “Truth or dare, Hendrix?”
“You wanna dare me to do some stupid shit like go stick my cock in a tree. So, truth it is, Medusa.” He wasn’t far off…
“You know damn well only pussies pick truth.”
“And you damn well know I’m anything but a pussy. This, on the other hand…” His hand clamped down on my thigh, fingers sweeping dangerously close to the hem of my shorts.
My entire being focused on that soft caress. “Fine.” I slapped his hand away. “How many girls have you fucked since I got sent away to foster care, Hendrix?”
I deliberately worded it that way, maybe to try to make him feel guilty. To remind him that, while I had been forcibly taken away and bounced from home to home, pining for him, he was here banging everything with a pulse.
A blip of something I wanted to believe was shame surfaced in his eyes. But then it shuttered, replaced by his cocky façade. “I don’t know,” he said.
I wasn’t sure why it made me angry or that I really actually wanted to know a cold, hard number. Perhaps I just needed him to drive the final nail in the coffin of my dying heart, to break what we’d had, once and for all. “You don’t know?”
“I answered the question” His uncaring gaze met mine. “Truth or—”
“Dare.” The last thing I would ever do was spill any truths to Hendrix.
He jutted his chin in the direction of the lake. “Go jump in, swim to the middle, and tread water for two minutes.”
My stomach sank. Hendrix knew how much I hated that lake. I’d been terrified of it ever since they had found a dead hooker in there years ago, half-eaten by God knows what.
I glanced at the ominous, black hole that lingered at the edge of the field just beyond the reach of the bonfire.
“What’s the matter, Lola?” Hendrix leaned in, his warm, whiskey-tinged breath caressing my neck. “Scared?”
“You know I am, you asshole.” I absolutely did not want to do it, but scared or not—I wouldn’t let him win. I kicked off my shoes, not realizing how drunk I was, until I pushed to my feet.
“You can change it to truth if you want,” Hendrix shouted behind me as I wobbled through the dark toward the muddy bank. “Pussies are allowed that exception.”
“Fuck you.”
Ignoring the terrified skip of my heart, I kept wading the tall grass until my foot touched the edge of the wooden pier. Then I froze.
How many bodies were at the bottom of that lake? How many half-eaten hookers?
Swallowing, I tugged my shirt over my head and stared out across the dark water. One hundred and twenty seconds in the stagnant body soup. That’s all I had to do.
God, this level of petty was so stupid. I shoved my shorts down my legs, tripping as I kicked them to the side.
Uneven, heavy footsteps came from behind me. “Damn at that ass…”
In any other situation, I might have been smug about that comment. But I was too worried about him coming up behind me. Knowing Hendrix, he’d probably shove me in.
I whirled to face him, the moonlit world around me blurring.
That feral, lust-drunk look he had aimed at my exposed body was almost enough to make me forget my fear for a moment.
“You know,” he said, his gaze dropping to my chest. “You could forfeit.”
“I’m not forfeiting.”
I stumbled to the edge of the pier and reached for the ladder, the scent of fish-tainted swamp nearly unbearable. I made it down two rungs before my toes sank into the warm water.
“Dead hookers, Lola.” The wooden boards groaned when Hendrix stepped onto the dock. “Bloated, rotting corpses.”
My grip on the metal poles tightened. I tried not to picture them lurking right beneath the surface, half-eaten and decaying. Then I forced myself to descend another rung of the ladder and another until the warm water lapped at my shoulders.
I shoved away from the pier, fighting my panic as I swam out. Only a few feet from the bank, something slimy touched my leg.
I flailed. “Something touched me!”
“Calm down before you drown yourself. It’s just a fish.”
The cannibal kind that ate bodies, or—it was a body. It touched me again, and I screamed, limbs freezing.
My face sank beneath the murky surface right before I sucked in a lungful of water. Panic consumed me as I pictured a zombie grabbing my ankle and dragging me down to the depths of the lake.
My uncooperative limbs flailed uselessly as I sank farther. I was going to die because I had an overactive imagination and Hendrix Hunt had dared me to jump in this stupid lake.