Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 980(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 980(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
I slide across the back seat as he closes the door undoing the button of my suit jacket.
I hear the driver’s door shut as I open the mini-fridge and take out a bottle of water. The limo eases forward, accelerating into traffic while I unscrew the cap ready to drown my sorrows in the next best thing to a cold shower right now.
Before I can get the bottle to my mouth, I’m jolted with a splash of chilled liquid and a crunching metal sound as the limo jerks viciously and screeches to a stop. I lurch in my seat, the water barely missing my pants and hitting the floor instead.
“Fuck!”
“Are you alright, Mister Carter?” Clancy lowers the privacy glass, giving me a concerned look.
I peer out the tinted windows. “I'm unharmed, are you?”
“I'm alright too, sir.”
I open my car door. Outside the limo, I eye the old red Honda that’s crumpled headfirst into the rear passenger side corner of the limo.
I glance at the damage and then at the Honda. The driver staggers out, practically falling to the pavement. When he looks up at me, my fear that he might be injured turns to anger.
His eyes are bloodshot. He attempts to steady himself against his car.
“You’re fucking drunk,” I shake my head, disgust pouring through me. “You could've killed someone.”
He grabs the Honda’s driver’s door handle and holds himself up.
And that’s when I see her.
My throat tightens. The blood rushes away from my extremities to compensate for the erratic beating of my heart. I shove my way by the driver, yanking the back door of the Honda open.
There she is. Clutching her head.
Fuck. She’s hurt.
If she’s injured, I’ll snap that driver’s spine over my knee. He’ll never see the morning. Chastity gazes up at me in wide-eyed confusion as I reach for her free hand, the buzzing, sharp tinge of emotion flooding me again. She’s shaking.
I easer her up and out of the car, and she leans against my arm.
She feels so much smaller right now. I want to bundle her up to my chest. My throat constricts as a heated sensation coils around my heretofore-unfeeling heart. I was afraid it had atrophied from years of misuse and neglect.
Yet here she is. My heart. In my arms.
Her tits crush against my chest. She shifts her body weight into me, trusting me to hold her up, and in that moment, I vow to never break that trust.
I stroke the side of her forehead. “Are you okay, little one?”
My voice seems to center her. She pushes away from me to stand straight, smoothing her dress over her hips, and I can’t believe I called her little one. Those words have never touched my lips before, but now that they have, they belong to her.
Chastity’s drunk driver is leaning against the car, trying not to doze off.
“Clancy,” I snap and he nods my way. “Call 911. Police and medical. She needs to go to the hospital.”
“I do not,” Chastity hisses back, screwing up her face. “I’m fine.”
I look back at Clancy. “Then call Doctor Olivette. Tell him to meet us at Presbyterian Hospital.”
Clancy nods, the phone already to his ear.
I try to control the rage building like a pressure cooker inside of me.
“Your friend is drunk,” I seethe, wanting to kill him for putting her in danger, then wanting to kill him again for being anywhere near her.
She whirls toward the driver, her eyes wide. “He’s not a friend. This is an Uber.”
A moment of relief lets me breathe, knowing she wasn’t leaving with this piece of shit, but it’s short-lived when he opens his mouth.
“I'm not drunk, asshole.” He rubs his face with both hands. “You came out of nowhere with that fucking hearse!” His voice is thick, the words slurred.
I bring my fist back and drive it into the little shit’s face, cracking his nose, blood spraying and running down his lips and over his chin dripping from the three hairs there impersonating a beard.
“Jesus Christ!” He squeals, staggering back. “What the fuck, man?”
Chastity is next to me, putting her hands on my arm. “Stop. They’ll arrest you…then you’ll have to go away.”
Her words squeeze around my heart. She wants me here, and it’s the only thing that keeps me from pounding the shithead into the asphalt.
“Looks like he hit his nose on the steering wheel.” Clancy raises his eyebrows as he steps closer to my left side. “He was bleeding when he got out of the car. Police, fire, EMS are on the way and Doctor Olivette will be waiting for you at the hospital.”
“I’m not going to the hospital,” Chastity interjects, her voice tight. “I’m fine, first of all. And second, I don’t have insurance so it’s stupid to go when I’m fine.”
“You are going and you don’t need insurance,” I answer, seeing the conflict in her gleaming meadow-green eyes. “You’re going. I’m paying. That’s the end of it.”