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)
Where you seek to un-break your heart from the very person who broke it in the first place?
So maybe it’s all fitting.
It’s all how it should be.
Me seeking safety from him.
“To use me to hurt my brother,” I whisper, my breaths choppy.
Remorse flashes through his features, tightening them up, making them sharper. “Yeah.”
Making his body sharp as well.
Hardening his muscles, turning him more than muscles and bones.
And I splay my fingers on his chest, trying to bring him back. Trying to inject him with life again as I ask, “Is that one of the things that you imagined? Before. When you were trying to keep me safe.”
His jaw clenches. “Yes.”
Oh.
He wanted to tie me up then.
No, he wanted to bring me here, in the middle of nowhere that I know no one would be able to find, not if they didn’t know where they were going, and tie me to his bed.
The bed that he got with me in mind.
I know it’s wrong. It’s despicable, what he thought, what he imagined. And I should be horrified. But all I can think about is him wanting to bring me to his safe place. To a place where he goes to escape. To be by himself.
Oh God, I’m crazy, aren’t I?
This is beyond Stockholm syndrome.
This is… absolute insanity.
But even so, I can’t help but feel a flutter in my tummy. A thrum in my thighs.
In my pussy.
At the thought of being tied up in his bed.
“What… What did you imagine?” I ask then, pressing my palms on his chest, feeling the thuds of his heart.
Which is slowing down, I think, at my question.
And it’s as if now he’s the one needing support to be able to stand.
Because he puts his hand on the wall by my head and leans over.
As he rasps, his eyes all stormy and dark, “How you would’ve let me, if I had wanted that.”
I don’t know why I deny the truth — he already knows this about me; I’ve already confessed my feelings to him — but I do as I reply, “I wouldn’t have.”
“Yeah, you would have.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I —”
“If I looked at you and crooked my finger once, you would’ve come running to me.”
I don’t know why that’s so arousing, the opposite of what it should be: demeaning and condescending. But it is. It makes my skin shiver, my body pulse as I imagine him doing just that.
Not only back then but now.
Crooking his finger at me, telling me to follow him wherever he goes.
It’s all the whiskey, I’m sure. That I watched him drink and somehow got drunk myself.
Even so, I shake my head. “That’s not… That’s not true.”
He ignores that thought and continues, “And if I told you to get in my truck, you would’ve already been halfway inside before I even finished my sentence.”
“No, I would’ve asked.”
“Asked what?”
“W-where we were going.”
“Like you did today,” he says in a flat tone.
I didn’t actually.
I did exactly what he’s describing. Got in his truck before he’d opened the door halfway. Mostly because I’d always wanted to ride in it. I’d always wanted to see the inside of it, feel it, smell it, be in it.
“Today was…” I shift restlessly against the wall, “different.”
“No it wasn’t.”
“It was,” I insist for some reason.
Which he yet again ignores, as he puts his other hand on the wall too. As if to make his point, to scream his point at me. Although I don’t understand what his point is. I don’t understand what my point is either.
I don’t understand what’s happening right now.
Except that I want him to both stop and keep going; I can’t decide which.
He decides for me though as he says, his gaze dark like the night, “And then I would’ve driven you out of town, without saying a single word, and you would’ve looked at me like I was taking you to heaven.”
I shake my head again. “No.”
“I would’ve brought you here, to the cabin and I would’ve shown you the bedroom and you would’ve loved the bed just as much as you did today. In fact I wouldn’t even have to tell you to get into it, you would’ve done that yourself. But I don’t think you would’ve fallen asleep.”
“I would —”
“Because you’d be too excited.”
“I —”
“To be here. To be with me. Finally. Because not only had I spared you a glance, which I never did before, I put you in my truck and drove you out here. I took you to this beautiful place with a beautiful cabin, a beautiful bed with slats, and you would’ve thought that this was the best day of your life. The most beautiful day. The day your dreams came true just because the guy you were in love with paid you a little bit of attention.” Then, “Wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” I blurt out, my fingers pulling at his t-shirt. “I would have. I would have thought that this was the best day of my life and I would’ve been stupid and —”