Total pages in book: 199
Estimated words: 200280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1001(@200wpm)___ 801(@250wpm)___ 668(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1001(@200wpm)___ 801(@250wpm)___ 668(@300wpm)
Again his response is something worse.
He reaches his arm back and locks the door that he just closed.
I can’t see it because his big muscular body is blocking his actions, but I definitely hear the click of it.
I even feel it.
It feels like a beat dropping from my heart and thudding down to my stomach.
“Oh my God, why are you locking the door?”
In response, he starts moving toward me.
Long, slow, prowling steps.
And I can’t help it. I absolutely cannot help stepping back — a display of weakness I know — until my spine crashes into the wall.
“Are you insane?” I speak again even though he’s hasn’t deigned to answer any of my questions yet. “Are you freaking insane? What are you doing? Why are you here? What if someone needs to use the bathroom, huh? What if it’s an emergency and they can’t get in?”
Again, no response from him except that he’s inching closer by the second.
Watching me.
Stalking me like I’m his prey.
“It’s going to be your fault,” I tell him, almost hurling the words at him. “Do you hear me? Your fucking fault if someone needs to use the bathroom and they can’t.”
Oh my God, why won’t he say something?
Why is he being so scary?
Stupid scary asshole.
“And what if someone calls for help? What if someone calls for security? What are you going to do then? I’m not going to cover for you.” I shake my head. “In fact, I’ll scream with them. I’ll —”
My words melt on my tongue because he’s here.
He’s reached me.
I look down to see that the tips of his brown boots, which look like they belong on a biker or a rockstar, are touching the tips of my sophisticated, girly silver stilettos. And for several seconds, all I can do is stare down at them. Stare down at how completely wrong his boots are for the outfit that he’s wearing, a dress shirt and a too-tight jacket, and yet how they look exactly right for him.
How unfair it is that I think this should be the new trend in men’s fashion.
Rockstar boots paired with a jacket a size too small.
“It’s all wrong,” I tell him. Then looking up, “Your boots don’t match your outfit. And it looks like you’re going to bust out of your jacket like the Incredible Hulk.”
“That’s always your threat, isn’t it?” he says then, finally and completely ignoring what I just said.
Which is just as well because what I’d said was silly.
“What is?”
“Screaming.”
I swallow. “That’s because you don’t listen to me.”
“Yeah, I’ve got selective hearing when it comes to you.”
“You –"
“But I’ll still say that it’s you,” he says, “who doesn’t listen.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Because wasn’t it last night that I told you what would happen if you screamed?”
I swallow, my hands pressed against the wall, trying to keep me steady. “I don’t care what you told me. I want you to —”
“I told you,” he cuts me off, the look in his eyes messing with my heartbeats, “that screaming won’t do you any favors, remember? That they’ll take one look at you and understand. In fact, not only will they absolve me of any sins but they’ll turn into sinners themselves. They’ll hold you down, keep you quiet and let me do what I came here to do.”
I’m shaking.
Or at least my thighs are.
I don’t know if it’s fear anymore though. It’s there, sure, but when he’s concerned, there’s always a hint of thrill. There’s always a hint of electricity.
Pressing my thighs together, I ask, “And what is it you came here to do?”
“I came here to ask you a question,” he replies softly, casually, belying the dark look in his eyes, that tic in his jaw.
“W-what question?”
He puts a hand on the wall, up above my head, stretching his already too tight jacket to its limit, appearing larger than before. “If I killed that motherfucker out there, the one you were sitting with at the table, would you cry at his funeral?”
My breathing stills. “What?”
“I’m debating two ways,” he goes on, still speaking softly, which somehow is making every word he says even more dangerous.
“I’m not sure what —”
“I could either snap his neck,” he interrupts me. “Very fast, very clean; he won’t know what hit him. Or I could break every little bone in his body, one by one, slowly, methodically, until he’s crying out in pain and pissing in his pants. And then put him out of his misery and strangle him to death.”
My breaths that had gone still and quiet before are noisy now. They’ve become heaving and erratic and my words sound the same. “You’re… This is… What the hell are you talking about? What the —”
“I personally prefer option number two. Because I don’t think simply snapping his neck is going to be enough for me. I want it to hurt.”