Total pages in book: 206
Estimated words: 192184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 961(@200wpm)___ 769(@250wpm)___ 641(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 961(@200wpm)___ 769(@250wpm)___ 641(@300wpm)
I started to think that all this was all my fault. Karmic justice. I’d always been drawn to romance novels where the hero was roguish, I’d loved the part in Gone with the Wind where Rhett carried Scarlett up to bed against her will and she was all happy in the morning.
I’d even once had a kind of dark fantasy and I’d beat myself up for it afterwards. I’d been touching myself, imagining the drummer of my favorite band but it wasn’t all romance in the fantasy. As I’d touched myself my fantasy morphed from him and me in his dressing room having rough hair-pulling sex against the wall to the whole band coming in, holding me down while they took turns. That was the hardest I’d made myself come, ever, and after that, maybe the guilt over that fantasy was why I’d always stopped touching myself when I started to come, culling the orgasm or something.
I’d never wanted to let my mind go there after that. I’d told myself that it was so wrong to even fantasize about when that was the sort of thing that happened to real women, women who’d be broken after something like that. Was I a mutant for responding to that sort of behavior? Now I was imprisoned in a sexually abusive forced relationship. Maybe it served me right.
She stepped out of the house looking gorgeous. Her long, dark hair fell in soft waves today and she wore a sexy little red dress with thin straps over her bare shoulders. She had bare legs, heeled sandals, and when she got into the passenger seat of my car, my hand instantly travelled up her leg, under her dress.
She squirmed, red-faced.
“Don’t be shy. Kiss me.” I leaned over.
She sat stiffly in the seat and wouldn’t look in my direction.
Earl and Sarah were standing on the front steps, eyes on us.
I gritted my teeth and squeezed her leg a little then whispered, “Kiss me, Athena. My staff are watching.” I glanced at her knees, they were both rug-burnt and scabbed over. I felt myself get hard, remembering her on her knees on my bedroom floor.
She flashed a look of confusion at me and then glanced at Earl and Sarah, then back at me.
“You actually want everyone to think I’m okay with all of this?” The challenge in her eyes got me harder. Her full lips were bright red and glossy, like raspberries. Juicy-looking raspberries.
“They know I’m a prisoner here. No one expects me to kiss you.”
“Kiss me.” I leaned in, “Kiss me now and make it good.” I caressed her cheek gently. “Don’t disappoint me.”
She swallowed hard, got a supremely sour look on her face, then leaned over, raked her fingers through my hair and dragged my mouth to hers. She plunged her tongue into my mouth and she was obviously trying for shock value. She let out a little gasp as my hand travelled up further until I cupped her between the legs.
“Good girl,” I smirked and then let go of her and turned the ignition.
She’d summoned courage and had tried to shock me, but I’d turned the tables on her. I suppressed the urge to bust up laughing.
She seemed to withdraw into herself as I drove to the restaurant. She needed help to snap out of it.
“Your things from the foster home have been brought in. They’re in the basement. You can head down tomorrow and look through them and decide what you need to keep.”
Her breath caught. “Okay.”
I knew by her face that she wanted to ask me questions. She didn’t. She just sat there, hands folded in her lap, staring ahead.
“Your foster parents have been debriefed,” I offered.
Her head snapped to my direction. “They know the truth?”
“As much as they need to know. They know that you’ve moved in with me. They know who I am and they know not to ask questions.”
She swallowed hard. “Please tell me that you haven’t threatened them.”
“They’ve been cautioned against contacting you or anyone else about the matter.”
She looked lost in thought for the rest of the drive. She hadn’t asked me about her father, the piece of shit. Maybe she knew enough to know he wasn’t worth the trouble of asking. I hadn’t done anything about him yet. I was quietly having him tailed by my private eye and looking into his past first. I wanted to know what my father’s beef was. Then I’d decide what to do about him.
I pulled into the restaurant parking lot and turned the car off. “There’s something else.”
He was staring at me, looking like he was considering what he’d say next.
“What?” I whispered, feeling dread spread through me.
“I want to compromise with you about tonight. Have a nice evening together.”
I waited for him to continue. He scratched his jaw, looking like he was pondering something.