Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 135378 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135378 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
“Not that guy. The one that made you hate kissing.”
“That is… incredibly personal and none of your business.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Frowning, she looks back at me. “I’m not going to dredge up my past traumas for your amusement, Silvan.”
“Wasn’t looking to be entertained by them. Just trying to understand you better. Bad breakup? Cheater? Just a terrible fucking kisser? What’s the deal?”
“It wasn’t a breakup because I never actually dated him. We were friends. Or I thought we were,” she mutters, looking down.
“Until?”
Her gaze snaps back to me. Anger glints in her eyes, but I know it’s not really for me. “Until we went to a party one night without our other friends. He was all over me, and I didn’t like it, so I left. But he’d been drinking, and I was supposed to be his designated driver. He called me at two in the morning asking me to come back, threatening to get behind the wheel and drive over to my house if I didn’t. I was used to him being… pushy when he was single and we hung out while he was drinking, but I didn’t want him to kill himself or someone else driving drunk, so I went back.”
I don’t need to hear the rest of the story to know that was a mistake.
“Did he rape you?” I ask bluntly.
She stares at me, wide-eyed and aghast that I would use that word. “No!” she says, her voice rising in pitch. “I mean… That’s… not what happened. He just wanted to get in my pants and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Sounds familiar.
I consider her words. “And did you let him?”
She hesitates for a moment, then shakes her head slowly. “No, but he wouldn’t stop, and I was afraid he was going to… Things happened that I didn’t want to happen, and afterward, I felt so gross. I couldn’t take enough showers to feel clean. I wanted to scrub all my skin off. Then to make matters worse, he must have realized he’d messed up once he was sober because he decided to get ahead of it. Told our friends we’d hooked up, and I’d been into it, but then I got all weird afterward. He made it sound like I just…” She stops talking and shakes her head. “Anyway, I stopped hanging out with all of them after that. I stopped hanging out with everyone. That’s why my mom made me come to this stupid party.”
That last bit causes my eyebrows to rise. “You live with your mom?”
She shakes her head. “Not technically. I wanted a chance to live on my own when I started college, so I’m staying in a dorm, but I have three roommates and we all share one bedroom. It’s difficult. So more often than not, I spend the night at home with my mom anyway.”
“You should get your own place.”
She cracks a smile. “Sure, let me just dip into my trust fund. Oh, wait…”
Since her comment seems mildly accusatory, I ask, “Do I seem like someone who has a trust fund to you?”
“You do.”
She’s right, but most of it is locked up until I’m twenty-one and then twenty-five. “I have other streams of revenue, too. Do you work?”
She messes with the lantern to see if it has any clues like the last room. “I want to, but I haven’t found anything yet.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Well, I’m majoring in environmental science and minoring in chemistry, so if I could find something entry level in a lab, that would be awesome. Even a research assistant. I’d just like to find something that will help prepare me for my career going forward, not just waiting tables, you know?”
“Smart,” I remark. “You’re clearly a big-picture kind of girl.”
She shrugs offhandedly. “I guess so.”
Finally, she locates a small key tucked away inside a hidden compartment on the lantern. She grins triumphantly as she holds it up. “Two lantern keys in back-to-back rooms? And here I thought your escape room was supposed to be hard.”
Her teasing makes me smile.
I rise as she unlocks the door, and as we venture into the next room, I admire her ass, filled with anticipation.
Sophie halts just past the door when she realizes what I already know.
The last room is the bedroom.
Chapter Five
Silvan
A soft “oh” of surprise slips past her lips. She looks back at me and swallows, more guarded now that we’re entering a room with an actual bed in it.
It’s a Viking’s bed, so it’s not all that comfortable. Made of straw and covered with animal skin just like a Viking’s would be.
Sophie steps forward, then decides her best bet is to keep her distance from me. She approaches the right wall with what looks like a window outside, but it’s actually an LED light, the only light in this room. It casts shadows on the walls as we move.