Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 65552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Our gazes collide, and he starts walking toward me. A low heat forms in my belly. I don’t want to react to his nearness, but I can’t help it. Everything about him reminds me of a past, of a life I no longer live in.
Closing the distance between us, he comes to a stop mere inches away from me. I can feel the heat of his body rolling off of him and slamming into me. I want to tell him to leave, to go away but the words won’t come.
I watch cautiously as he reaches out and tugs at a piece of my blonde hair, rubbing the strand between two fingers as if he’s testing its durability. It reminds me of a time when we were kids, and he’d always pull on my pigtails. Today that seems as if it was an eternity ago. What he just said finally hits me, and my response rolls right off the tip of my tongue.
“Why would you do that? You hate me.” I don’t know why I ask that question because once I say it out loud, I realize how bad it sounds. How much it sounds like I want that to happen.
“I don’t have to like you to get off,” he says, snickering, his eyes appearing darker.
“Well… I-I don’t want to do that.” I take a step back, desperate to put some distance between us, but he takes that as an invitation and instead moves forward, continuing to crowd me.
“I didn’t want my sister to get in the car with you that night, but she did. Sometimes we don’t get what we want…” His voice trails off, and I become increasingly aware of the fact that I’m alone with him in my apartment. He could easily overpower me, easily take whatever he wants from me. Would he really do that? Go that far? Would I even fight back? I’m not sure. I deserve everything coming my way, don’t I?
Those vibrant green eyes of his twinkle with an unreadable emotion, and when my back hits the wall, panic starts to claw up my spine. I can’t tell if he’s trying to scare me or if he’s serious when he moves even closer until there isn’t even an inch of space between us. My chest rises and falls rapidly. Can he hear the thump of my heartbeat?
I’m trembling now, but I don’t want to give away how scared I am. He’ll latch onto that fear, use it against me, wrap it around my neck like a noose.
Sighing, his hot breath fans against my face. “Are you scared of me, bug?”
“No,” I murmur, only half lying. I’m not scared, not of him hurting me physically, at least. I’d welcome that… welcome the pain with open arms. What I don’t want is to be reminded of the past, and that’s all I can see when I look at him. I don’t want those emotions to come back to the surface, not after I spent the last two years trying to drown them out.
“You should be,” he growls like a dog, his teeth almost nipping the tip of my nose, and in the blink of an eye, his hand is at my throat.
His fingers wrap around it, squeezing, cutting off my air supply, making me gasp for air that will never come. Instinctively, I lift my hands and take hold of his wrist, trying to pull his arm away. Digging my fingernails into his skin, I can see the crescent-shaped indentations I leave behind. My lungs burn, and I struggle beneath his grasp.
Moving him is like trying to move a house. He is impenetrable and is only going to stop if he wants to. It doesn’t take much to know that he’s stronger than me, and he knows that.
Taking in the satisfying grin on his face, I would say he more than knows it, and he enjoys it as well. Enjoys the power he has over me. Even more shocking, I find that some twisted part of me enjoys it too. Being at his mercy, it… it does something to me.
“It would be so easy for me to end your life right now. I could strangle you with one hand. Stop your breathing and watch the life bleed from your eyes.” His hold eases a fraction, and I part my lips, letting a frantic breath into my lungs.
I don’t know why, maybe it’s the lack of oxygen to the brain or the fact that I deserve his cruelty, that makes me say what I do next, but it puts into perspective just how dangerous Jackson is. Just how much he’s changed and how far he’s willing to go for revenge.
“Then do it. End me. We both know I deserve it,” I croak, the words coming out labored.
The look on his face tells me I’ve just given him the ammunition he needs to end my life, and like a bull that’s had a red flag waved in front of it, he charges. The hand at my throat tightens to the point of pain. My lungs shrivel, and the evilness in his eyes becomes terrifying. Instantly, I realize he will do this. He will end me, and I’ve put the thought in his head.