Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 108616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
She shivered at the compliment. Or was it the nausea tumbling her stomach? Why wasn’t she fighting him? Spitting and punching and running away? Was it his strength holding her against the door? The conditioning instilled in her as a slave? The connection they shared through Mattie? Or was it as shallow as lust in the proximity of those stark gray eyes and talented lips?
He shoved a hand through her hair and licked the corner of her mouth. “I won’t touch your defenses. Just give me everything else.”
Yet he’d already taken everything, and her walls against him were splintering. Even if she could bring herself to kill him, she was restrained by the contract on Mom and Mattie’s lives. A contract that would mobilize a hit man if he or Mr. E died suspiciously.
Her chest hurt, and her heartbeat thrashed in her ears. Sure, she could run. She could disappear somewhere they couldn’t find her. But Mr. E had promised that if she vanished, he’d make Mom and Mattie’s death so vile, it would reach national attention. Just to ensure it reached her attention.
Trapped in paranoia, she was terrified to make a mistake, her every action watched, judged, and used to threaten her family. Her nerves were so raw, she trusted nothing, connected to no one, and her loneliness was exasperated by her complicated fucking relationship with the man peppering kisses over her lips. She wanted to love him even as her fingers twitched to run a blade across his throat.
She spoke against his persistent mouth. “If the boy is suffocating on his own vomit, I won’t be around long enough to give you anything.”
His face tightened. “Very well. Go check on him.” He stepped back to give her just enough room to slip around him. As she did, a recognizable pang assaulted her scalp. She didn’t have to look back to know he held a chunk of her hair in his fist.
His creepy hair-thing fueled her race up the stairs, to the safety of her bedroom and to the boy she would destroy to keep her family alive.
Chapter 8
Liv rested her head against the box, absorbed by the rueful tune braiding through her mind, her ass numb from sitting on the subfloor. She should check on the boy, but the sight of his suffering would shred her already crumbling composure. The raw groans echoing from within the box were doing that enough on their own.
The other captives had fought her with vicious desperation. This boy’s determination was quieter, more calculating. She heard it in his steady, low-pitched voice, saw it in his alert gaze and tightening fists, and felt it in her increased body temperature and rapid heartbeat.
Dammit, she’d trained herself not to get attached to these boys. She uncrossed her knees and straightened her legs along the floor. She would need extreme mental focus to smother her attraction to this boy and maintain her icy indifference.
The lid was closed, but she could imagine the terror creasing his beautiful face. It set off her own memories, shooting pain into body parts that had been shackled, whipped, and violated by Van’s hand.
She pushed that aside. Self-pity would only earn her a stumbling misstep and a black-eye from Van’s fist. Her own punishments certainly wouldn’t make this experience easier on the boy. He needed a confident hand to guide him through the next few weeks. She climbed to her feet, her muscles tight with reluctance.
She opened the lid, knowing he wouldn’t hear the squeaking hinges nor would he sense her leaning over him. The Solfeggio frequency piping through the headphones overpowered his perceptions, his ability to reason, his entire universe. So much so, he probably wouldn’t even sense the change of air.
His lips stretched back in misery as he panted through his teeth. Perspiration wet his skin, streaking drips down his ribs with the heave of his chest. A lonely, weak moan reached from his throat and penetrated her chest.
As his body writhed against the walls in the narrow space and a pang of guilt cramped her gut, she forced herself to evaluate his distress. His rush of breath was panicked but not unrestricted. The chains confined his flailing but didn’t cut off blood flow. As for his mind, she just needed it intact enough to be trained, to pass the introductory meeting with the buyer, the final delivery, and receipt of the client’s payment.
After she delivered him, he would be dead to her. The same way she thought of the others.
Her eyes caught on his sculpted pecs, traveled along the dips and juts of his abs, and lingered on the impressive length of his cock where it lay against his thigh. Her fingers burned to touch him.
She gripped her stomach, disgusted with herself. He was even more attractive than the others, but he wasn’t like them. His matured masculinity was prominent in the thickness of his build and the determined set of his jaw. Most importantly, he had a family and community that would miss him. What a god-awful choice she’d been forced to make.