Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 27524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
“Are the stories true?”
“You already think they are.”
“Well, yeah.” I lick my lips. “I hate to tell you this, but you make a terrible first impression.”
He grunts and sets me down gently on something soft. Planting on my hands on a flannel-covered mattress, I take in my surroundings. His bed could fit a football team. It’s so huge, it takes up most of the small cabin, although there’s a card table and a hearth set up nearby. “Finish telling me about your mother,” he instructs, beginning to pace, his hands curling into fists. “I can’t wait much longer.”
Unable to ignore the long, wide ridge behind his fly, I scoot back on the bed. “Can’t wait much longer for what?”
“That pussy.” He rakes his fingers down his belly, taking two handfuls of his erection. And there’s still some left over. “It’s taunting me.”
“Not on purpose.” I swallow hard. “Out of curiosity, what’s holding you back? We both know I don’t stand a chance.”
“That’s what’s—” He breaks off with a broken growl, cutting a look toward the now-closed door. “That’s what’s stopping me. I didn’t like it when we were outside and you started to look sad.”
My pulse starts going a million miles an hour, my instincts shouting at me to run. “I s-see. You wanted me to keep struggling?”
“No.”
“No?”
Conflict crowds his features. “You’re going to look sad or scared when I’m fucking your little body no matter what I do. It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
More pacing, the floorboards kicking up a groaning protest. “Finish telling me about your mother.”
“I…” Shaking off my confusion, I try and remember where I left off. “Um. My mother. She sold me to a man in our neighborhood who would arrange…dates of a certain kind…between men and women and then take a big cut of the money.”
“A pimp,” he snarls.
“If you want to get technical, yeah.” My mind flips through a series of images. My mother’s indifferent expression. My rush to pack. The bus terminal. “That was the final straw for me. I took off that night.”
A dangerous light flares in his eyes. “No one touched you?”
“No.” The light in his gaze flickers, and I get the feeling I just rescued him from insanity. “But the man who owns me now…he hasn’t stopped looking. He’s a dangerous man and he took my leaving as a personal insult.”
Very slowly, Carver plants his ham hock fists on the bed, weighing the end of it down beneath his crazy bulk. “He does not own you, Lainey.” His bellow rattles my teeth. “I will kill him for putting a claim on what’s mine.”
In that moment—with his vow hanging in the air—a few things occur to me. One, Carver has been watching me long enough to know my name, because I certainly didn’t tell him. Two, if he doesn’t even like to see me sad…I’m not so sure anymore that I’ll meet my doom tonight. Three, whether or not he’s planning on playing Grim Reaper, he’s definitely not keen to let me go. And that is more than enough to make me want to lunge for the exit.
“I don’t want to take away your will like they did. I don’t. You’re just a sweet, little princess,” he says, sounding tortured. Chest heaving, he wraps a hand around my ankle and yanks, leaving me flat on my back in front of him, panting up at the ceiling. “But I can’t live a minute longer without knowing what it’s like to be inside your cunt.” He licks his lips and starts to unzip his pants with blunt, hungry fingers. “Need to fuck it and feel it squeeze me all over. Taunting. It’s taunting me.”
“If you don’t want to take away my will,” I say in a rush. “G-give it back to me.”
He reaches into his jeans and drags out a heavy, massive, thickly veined arousal. I almost scream bloody murder at the sight of it. “How?” he grits out.
I remember how he reacted when I smacked him, going stock still instead of striking me back. More than that, I recall him being troubled over making me sad, I think. He wants to please me and doesn’t know how. That possibility makes me feel hot and achy, my inner thighs growing sensitive, concentrated in tingling waves at the center. I’ve stayed far away from the opposite sex because I feared being overpowered and not given a voice. What if…of all people…my kidnapper is the one who actually lets me be in charge?
Acting on instinct, I move onto my knees and grab the front of his shirt. Hard. His breath holds and he watches me from beneath hooded eyelids, anticipation radiating off of him in waves. I was right. “Don’t you dare put that big, dirty thing inside me until you’ve earned it.”