Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
I will seriously have to tame my mind when Emma walks out here. I’m going to have to stamp on any desire. The memory of her body, the kiss of her slit before she made that awful ouch noise… Fuck, I need to bury it all: the passion in her eyes, the taste of her lips.
I flinch, turning at a noise, hand going for my hip. Mike frowns at me from the open passenger-side door. “You good?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say, seeing Emma at the periphery of my vision. I don’t turn to greet her properly, my body already responding to her closeness. The pain from the beating fades to complete silence. All my body is willing to acknowledge is how close she is, sending savage signals throughout my body, telling me to claim her right now, ignoring her dad, ignoring my friend.
They stow their things in the back and then climb into the car. Emma sits in the back. I glance in the rearview. She’s wearing a thick hoodie, her arms wrapped around her middle with the hood pulled up as she stares down into the footwell. She looks so beautiful, wrapped up, like a gift just for me.
I bite down so hard I almost cause myself pain, burying that thought with all the other deranged notions whispering through my mind, telling me to grab her, find a private place, and tear off her clothes.
“We should hit the road,” I say.
“Yeah, we should be able to get there by sunrise.” Emma looks up and makes eye contact with me in the rearview. She’s got that confident-shy look on her face again, like the confidence is trying to bust through the shy shield. She stares a challenge at me.
“Yeah, we should,” I reply, giving her nothing, making myself cold.
That’s what I’ll have to be now. I’ve tried avoiding her, only visiting Mike when I’m sure she’s at her mother’s. Obviously, I can’t do that anymore, so I’ll have to shut my feelings down instead. Even now, with Mike sitting beside me, the hunger tries to grip me. It’s like I’m a vampire, and she’s the only person I can feast on. I want her perfect, thick body so badly.
Mike gives me a tight look. I know he doesn’t enjoy lying to her. I don’t enjoy lying to him.
Starting the engine, I pull away from their house. Emma isn’t an idiot. She knows something’s up. This might be one of the few cases where imagination is better than knowing the truth. If she learned who Rafael was and what he’d do to her if he ever caught her…
I can’t even think about it. It’ll send me into a rage. I’d beat a hundred men to death with my bare hands before I let a single one touch her.
I drive through the night, Mike falling asleep, resting his cheek against his bag, and turning into the window. I think Emma is sleeping, too, before she sighs and says, “I guess you and Dad think I’m pretty stupid, right?”
I glance at Mike. He’s breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling almost exaggeratedly. He’s taking the news well, like I knew he would. He understands the realities of my profession, but I never meant to bring this hell back to his doorstep. I never intended to risk his daughter’s life—my woman’s life.
“I don’t think you’re stupid, Emma,” I say.
Even to myself, I sound overly robotic, as if I’m trying too hard to be distant and cold. That’s true, but I can’t risk letting out even one percent of my feelings. If I do, it’ll be game over. Then, it will all come rushing out. It will consume me, consume us both. I shift, my bandages rubbing against my back.
“So you expect me to believe we’re driving down the highway in the middle of the night because… we just want to get to the cabin super fast? Just because?”
I grit my teeth, knowing I’ll need to give her something more, but I can’t tell her who Rafael is. I can’t watch her face melt into pure dread as I explain what this monster would do to her. She doesn’t deserve to hear that sort of pain. She doesn’t deserve to experience that agony. I’ll shield her from it.
“I think you know there’s more going on. You know what I do for a job.”
“I don’t, actually,” she says. “I know it’s something mysterious, but Dad will never say.”
I sigh. Speaking with her shouldn’t feel this illicit, as if I’m breaking a thousand rules whenever I open my mouth. I feel like a real scumbag just by being close to her.
“I work for an agency that deals with child traffickers on an international level. At first, I was in special operations, but then I founded a private company. We work in accordance with the government, but we can go further while Uncle Sam turns a blind eye.”