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)
The position and angle of her legs pressed together limited his thrusts to short, shallow fucks. She couldn’t get close enough and bowed her body into his. She wanted him to fuck harder, though he was hammering his hips, his cock filling her with each forceful drive.
He was inside her, his body enveloping her and shaking violently with need, yet she wanted more. Couldn’t get enough of him. Her heart pounded against the mattress, and her ribs felt bruised inside. Needy and crazed, she twisted her neck, seeking his mouth. He met her tongue and responded with the same urgency, feeding her his desire, swallowing her exhales.
His toes curled against hers, his powerful body rubbing along the length of her smaller one. One hand shifted beneath her hip, his trembling fingers fumbling around her clit. He found it, circled through her wetness, and flicked it with precision. Right there. Oh fuck, right there.
“Come,” she breathed against his lips. “Come with me.”
He rotated his hips, rubbed her clit, and ate at her mouth until they stiffened, gasped, and fell together.
When they caught their breaths, he leaned in and nibbled on her earlobe. “Morning.”
An hour later, they realized it was, in fact, afternoon. They stood at the keypad, showered, dressed, and stared at the digital 3:18 PM on her phone. Despite their shared smiles, unease buzzed between them. Their bodies needed to be fed, so they were forced to leave the room.
She stuffed her phone in the back pocket of her jeans and clutched the door handle. “Let me go down first. I’ll make sure he’s not back and return to get you.”
He reached around her and punched in the code. “We went through this last night. You’re not going down there, or anywhere, without me.”
The door clicked open. She flashed him her most threatening glare. “Then stay behind me and out of sight.”
Through the vacant outer chamber, another keypad, and down the dark stairway they went. Silence greeted her at the bottom. Daylight leaked in through the kitchen window, spreading a sparse glow into the hallway.
She reached back, placed a hand on his chest, and gave him a silent command with her eyes. Stay.
In the kitchen, dirty soup bowls filled the sink. The refrigerator hummed. Outside the window, the trees rustled beneath the afternoon sun. With a stuttering heart beat, she opened the door to the garage. The van sat alone. She held her breath as she checked the driveway and the front curb through the windows. Van’s Kia wasn’t there, and he had no reason to hide his car from her. Her edginess loosened, but remnants of uncertainty remained.
She returned to the stairway and found Josh gripping the door frame, his impatient eyes blazing from within the shadows. She touched his abs and met a wall of rock-hard tension. “He’s not here. Follow me.”
Leading him down the hallway, a familiar dread gripped her gut. She needed to check Van’s room of horrors, if only to ease some of her lingering anxiety about Van being there. But she didn’t want to go in that room alone.
Hand on the knob, she inhaled deeply. “This is his room. As you know, he is…” How did one sum up morally, mentally, aesthetically, and theoretically damaged? “Fucked up.”
Impatience vibrated from him. “Open the door, Liv.”
She did. And gasped. Stumbling through the room, she spun in a circle, hand over her mouth. An empty mattress. An empty gun cabinet. The drawers hung from the dresser. Empty. The closet door stood open. Empty. No mannequins. No clothes. There was nothing but worn carpet and the musty reek of vacancy. “He’s gone.”
Huge fucking alarm bells blared in her head. Her heart raced and senses heightened. Why would he leave? Was it fear? Was all hell about to break loose?
Josh clasped her fingers, his forehead furrowed in thought. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
She rubbed her head. “Van’s a sadistic dick, but he wouldn’t have left me if my life was in danger. Something prompted him to leave in a hurry, though.”
Shards of glass littered the carpet in front of the gun cabinet. The door was a toothy frame hanging on its hinge.
Her stomach turned. “That’s what he hit when I told him about Traquero.” Had he been angry for her? Or at her? It shouldn’t have mattered, but when it came to Van, her feelings gnarled and bled in complication. She thought back to the last conversation she had with him. “He said he was leaving in the morning to begin his scouting.”
“Only, he left before we got back.” Josh strode out of the room and into the spare bedroom.
A square of ratty green carpet buckled between the walls. The metal blinds on the single window hung lopsided and yellowed by age.
“This one has always been empty,” she said. A room reserved for her, one she’d refused to move into.