Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74633 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74633 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
When he’d first noted my plain T-shirt and jeans, there had been a flash of disapproval in his eyes. “I must take you shopping,” he had murmured. “A man wears trousers. A beautiful woman should always wear a dress.”
He slid into the car, closed the door, and started to pull his seatbelt on. “Put yours on,” he instructed.
I obeyed and felt a sudden panic to be trapped in such close confines with him. It was as if I was inside the belly of a beast. Even the smell of expensive new leather made me feel nauseous. I forced myself to remember my father’s fingers. I was doing this for him. No matter what happens now, at least they had been safely sewn back on.
“What a night this is,” he roared suddenly, excitement vibrating like electricity in his voice.
I shivered with fear and revulsion as he switched on the ignition, the car snarling to life as music blasted into the tight space. Strangely, it was one of my favorite tracks. Highest in the Room by Travis Scott. He revved the engine deliberately and I jumped. With a laugh, he let the powerful machine surge forward.
I hugged myself.
We came to a screaming stop at a set of traffic lights, and he turned to peruse his latest acquisition. Turning the music down, he spoke, “My queen, do you know how long I’ve watched you from afar?”
“What?” I asked in amazement.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you at your mother’s funeral. You didn’t cry.”
“You were at my mother’s funeral?” I whispered. I felt as if I’d dropped down the hole Alice in Wonderland had fallen into.
He nodded slowly. “Why wouldn’t I be there? I paid for it. And all her treatments too.”
My jaw became slack and I stared at him in shock. “You paid for my mother’s treatments.”
“In return for your father’s house.” He made a disgusted face. “But I’ll tell you now, if not for my … desire for you, your useless father would have been crushed like a beetle years ago. But now, it’s payback time. For your father and you. So … let me explain how it will be between us from now on. You will live in my house until I no longer have a need for you. During that time, you will dress how I tell you to, and you will do whatever I tell you to do, no matter how degrading you feel it is, or how repulsed you are by it. In all things, but especially, sexually. I have, shall we say, certain specialized needs. Do I make myself clear?”
I stared at him, speechless, too shocked to even properly comprehend what he was saying, what he was threatening me with. Surely, I had heard wrong.
“I didn’t hear your answer,” he prompted and there it was again, that unholy light in his dead eyes. He knew I didn’t want him and that excited him. Taking by force what didn’t want to be taken. He wanted to hurt me. He would enjoy breaking my spirit. He was a monster.
I’d been sold to a freaking monster.
“The lights have changed,” I whispered.
Horns began to blare behind us. Unfazed, he brought his hand towards my face and I couldn’t help the instinctive move away from him. It only served to fire up his sick amusement. His laughter rang in my ears as he stomped his foot on the gas and we raced forward in a mad frenzy of noise and movement. I shut my eyes to the nightmare that had become my reality. I hoped and prayed that we would crash and end both our lives, or at least, his. A man like him didn’t deserve to live.
When the crash occurred, it was so sudden, so God-like in its delivery to my prayer that I felt as if my soul left my body.
Something slammed so hard into us that the beast-car lifted off the road and flew into the air. My senses suddenly sharpened and I registered every second as if it was happening in a movie and we were in slow motion. With crystal-clear perception I experienced the car somersaulting, me turning upside down, my body straining against the seatbelt, my right hand desperately clutching the door handle, the grating noise of metal scraping against the road and the sparks that friction produced, before we finally crashed into a lamppost with the sound of an almighty explosion.
As I stared out through the shattered windscreen, I was blinded by the oncoming lights on the opposite side of the road. I didn’t feel any pain at all. Just an all-encompassing, astounding, numbing shock … I was alive.
But so was he.
I heard the monster beside me begin to move and swear in Russian as he tried to extricate himself from the vehicle. While I sat there, in my cramped upside down position, I was too numb to do anything, he found his way out. I closed my eyes and tried to think. I needed to get out. The car could burst into flames.