Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 122609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 409(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 409(@300wpm)
If I could go again, get some more photos, that would be great, but I better not even try that. From the looks of his rap sheet, and those guys that were standing around with guns, I need to never go there again and just count my blessings that they didn’t see me. Besides, I probably won’t get the chance again anyway, even if I wanted to, because the power was off when I was there, and I won’t be so reckless to do it again on purpose. Teresa accused me of being daredevil, but only when I know I have a foolproof plan. I’m adventurous, not stupid. I don’t mind dancing with danger, but I’m not trying to take him back to my place and fuck him.
She rose from her chair and refreshed her wine glass while a reggae song she didn’t recognize started to play. But she left her glass untouched. Curling up in the comfortable five-star hotel bed, she fought sleep until she finally succumbed. She could feel herself going into the soft darkness until she was completely devoured in its cottony arms. Dreams ravished her brain, some sensual, some nightmarish. She didn’t know what time it was when she flung the sheets off her body, perspiration covering her face. She could hear the music still on, this time ‘Angel,’ by Amanda Perez. She groaned and stretched her legs, blinking, trying to wake herself enough to sit up and go to the restroom. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she thought she heard humming, in tune to the music.
It was a deep voice. A gravelly voice. Rustic and covered in distorted nails. Masculine and threatening… It made her insides vibrate and twist, and as it registered, she heard the floor sigh.
Her heart nearly burst out of her chest. Scooting across the bed, her eyes darted across the room to where her purse was, her gun in the back pocket. She stood silently and walked slowly across the hotel room. Yawned for good measure, pretending to be unaware and half asleep. Getting to her purse, she looked inside. It was empty… Her stomach dropped to the floor.
“Are you looking for this, baby?”
She swiveled fast to see the frightening silhouette of a tall, broad-shouldered man standing by the bed. He was shrouded in darkness, only visible when he flicked a lighter. In his grasp was her gun. He slipped it in his back pocket and held a different one in his right hand.
OH MY GOD… IT’S HIM! IT’S JAMES WILDE!
“Who are you?” She hoped to make him think she was still oblivious and posed no threat to him. “What are you doing in my hotel room?”
“According to your computer,” he grinned, the lighter illuminating half of his face, “you know exactly who I am. And according to the photoshoot you did of my property instead of minding your business, you know exactly what I do, too… like the fact that the only box I truly fold is the one between a bitch’s legs.”
“HELP! HEEELP!” Before she could scream again and get to the front door, he lunged at her at a speed that seemed inhuman and shoved a rag of some sort in her mouth. She gagged, her throat burning as tears streamed down her cheeks from the pressure. He covered her lips with his big hand and pressed his chin against the crown of her head. Her arms flailed about, desperation crawling up her soul and choking it out. He was monstrously strong, possessing the kind of strength one never hopes to feel unless it’s their own. She tired out fast as he held her so tight, binding her. She flirted with blacking out but fought to stay alert. She tried piercing the air with her muffled screams, over and over again.
“Shut the fuck up,” he said in an almost polite tone, which made it all the more unnerving. “Time to go back to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”
She got a second wind but then he brought another rag to her nose. Her eyes burned as she strained to break free, to no avail.
Everything went black. Hazy. Warm. Soft. The world turned to murky macadam and liquid gesticulation. She was a blob in a lava lamp, floating inside of herself, but could feel him carrying her limp body in his arms. The last thing she heard was the door opening, then closing, followed by his footsteps. They got fainter and fainter, until she could hear nothing at all…
CHAPTER FOUR
James rolled the steel Baoding Balls around in his palm as he stood in his home’s security room. Chris Brown’s, ‘Under the Influence’ filled the concrete enclosure through the silver ceiling speakers, pulsing with the rhythm and the beat. Dense light gray smoke drifted up from his mouth. He placed the cigarette in the black skull ashtray to his right, next to a dashboard full of buttons and dials.