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 woke up to a darkened room and an empty bed. He was getting clothes on. He left the room. I stayed in the bed. I didn’t want to get up. Ever.
I got up, while flicking the lamp on. As I pulled the blankets back, I caught sight of the belt mark across her ass and lower back. I winced. I got dressed, turned the light back out, then left, shrugging my jacket on. When I grabbed my phone and keys at the bottom of the stairs, I ran into Sarah. As I walked past, ignoring her dirty looks, I caught a flash of shock in her eyes. I passed the mirror on the wall by the front door and saw that my eye was bruised and that there were claw marks on my face. Looked like I’d have a fat lip, too.
I decided to head to the gym to punch the rest of this out. I held back with Tia this afternoon. Yeah, I’ve been holding back all along but today I let the beast out more than ever and if I was honest with myself I knew I could’ve really gone another round, could’ve blackened her eye and bloodied her lip, like she’d done to me. The difference was I deserved it; she didn’t.
I hadn’t hit her back, other than her ass; I had zero desire to hit her anywhere else. In fact, I hated how I felt when I’d hit her ass with the belt. I didn’t think I wanted to do that to her again. Right now, I wanted to hit something or someone else to work these frustrations out. I had all this rage in me that I couldn’t put a label on. I still tasted my blood on my lip as I drove away.
I knew where at least part of the frustration came from. I was so fucking mad about that woman tracking her down and getting her aside. That could’ve been anyone. It could’ve been someone who wanted to take her from me that had the ability to do it.
Pop and I both got identical anonymous letters today. They were cryptic, done in cut up newsprint, saying something about fresh new Ferrano acquisitions being redistributed. It might not be about her, but I suspected it was. And in case it was, I’ve already arranged to double security for her, but before I could pull the trigger to get that done this happened.
I felt a pang of regret at the things I said to her, at the way I took her, but I’m split in two as I fucking loved the rush of it at the same time. I especially loved it when the fight turned to submission. She was beautiful, showing fear, fighting with me and then showing more fear, and then submitting to me and coming so hard like that for me. And fuck, when she melted into me afterwards, letting me hold her and comfort her? It was what I needed; she gave that to me. The next step for me was to get her to want to give it to me. Would she get there easily or would I break her? And would I always feel guilt like this after the fact?
It was like my chest weighed five hundred pounds right now. Everything I thought I wanted was in my bed, but it felt like I was fucking it up. Royally fucking it up.
The heavy bag would take the rest of this and then I’d go back, slip in beside her and get a good night’s sleep so I could think clearly tomorrow about what to do about this foster parent problem and hope that I found some clarity somewhere on the whole situation.
When I climbed back in bed at almost one in the morning after a workout, a run, and three shots of scotch during an urgent meeting about a problem down in Mexico I found her asleep in my bed and fuck me, but she was wearing the shirt I wore earlier today.
I climbed in on the opposite side, deciding to test out my theory of whether she was just moving to the other side of the bed out of habit or not. She rolled toward me. I felt a pang of something, something that made me pull her to me and bury my nose in her hair. She let out a sound that was almost a purr and then nuzzled into my collar bone and wrapped her arms around me. It made my heart constrict when my eyes adjusted in the dark and I saw a peaceful little smile on her sleeping face.
I fell asleep wondering if she was dreaming about the guy from the ice cream shop, the guy that she wished I was. I knew she couldn’t be dreaming about the real me with that smile on her face and it left an empty, raw feeling deep in my gut. It was like I was consumed by guilt. This was foreign. I don’t think I’d ever felt guilty about anything in my life before meeting this girl.