Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Her tits sat high. Her waist tucked in, and her jeans molded to slender hips and legs, leaving little to the imagination. The woman was built. Easily fuckable. Insanely gorgeous.
That only made him hate her more.
Shifting away, he turned his attention to the denim jacket that lay near the door. He remembered it well—the soft texture beneath his hands, the scent of vanilla on the collar, and the small front pocket, where he watched Caroline slip the scrap of paper he’d given her the day she died.
If he hadn’t written down the account information, he wouldn’t be in this mess. Hell, he should’ve never written down any of his secrets.
Not just his secrets. He’d spewed an unedited, unfiltered stream of consciousness in those emails. He’d detailed his fears, his regrets, every internal battle, every ridiculous notion in his head, every terrible thing that happened to him, and his desires… Fucking hell, she knew his darkest cravings, his filthy fantasies, his obsession with fucking and dominating and his inability to emotionally connect to sex.
He’d confessed every shameful thought to his girl. Because she was dead. He never imagined anyone reading it. Why would they want to?
What a dumb fucking asshole.
Except the writing had helped him. It had given him a sense of control over a life that had spiraled wildly and dangerously into chaos.
He lifted the jacket to his nose and inhaled deeply. Caroline’s vanilla scent was long gone. In its place lingered the aroma of an unfamiliar woman. Undertones of lavender drowned in years of deceit.
He hated her with a blinding passion.
Fury burned anew as he stored the jacket safely in his old bedroom.
Then he loaded the woman into the truck and drove her into the desert.
CHAPTER 4
Rylee woke with a hangover.
In the middle of the godforsaken desert.
The sun’s unblinking eye glared down at her, scorching her from the inside out. Nausea, headache, crushing heat… She rolled to her stomach and retched precious fluid, groaning miserably.
Fresh pain seeped into her palms, where she’d planted them on the ground.
“Ow, ow, fuck!” She pushed to her knees and shook out her blazing hands.
The sand was the sky’s co-conspirator, cooking her as viciously as the sun. And there were miles of it in every direction.
He hadn’t just dumped her in this desolate wasteland alone.
He’d shackled her.
A thick leather cuff clamped around her wrist, secured with a tiny padlock. The ring connected to a chain that snaked through the sand and circled the base of an old telephone pole.
From one horizon to the other, that pole was the only sign of human civilization.
Deep cracks forked through the parched earth beneath her, burnt into a hard crust, no more hospitable than a sunbaked rock. If Tommy had driven her here in her truck, the tires had made no impression on the ground.
She felt sick. Aside from her churning stomach, dusty throat, pounding headache, achy muscles, and feverish flu-like symptoms, she was frying in this heat, and that worried her more than anything.
How far would he take this?
She remembered dying. Suffocating beneath his hand. Had he killed her and revived her?
Would he kill her again?
Consumed with panic, she stumbled to her feet and jerked uselessly on the chain. The desert stretched out around her, tufted with shrubs and punctuated with small boulders and tall columns of cacti.
Black vultures circled overhead, eying her like carrion. Reptiles sought shelter in the shadows of the rocks where the sand wouldn’t roast them. There was no shade close enough nor large enough to protect her. No water. No breeze. Not a cloud in the sky to filter the harsh rays.
Each searing breath sank into her lungs, drowning her chest in lava.
“You fucking prick! Where are you?” Her scream echoed across the barren terrain. “This isn’t how an adult faces his problems. You’re a goddamn coward!”
She didn’t believe that. A coward would’ve left her for dead. While he seemed to be doing precisely that, he wouldn’t have gone through this trouble after asphyxiating her. What was his plan?
The rule of threes.
She cast her mind back to their ominous conversation, recalling the first and only words he’d spoken to her.
Three seconds to make a life-or-death decision.
Three minutes without air.
Three hours in extreme heat.
Three days without water.
Three weeks without food.
Three months without hope.
Dread swelled, as thick and hot as the air.
He’d already enacted the first two. And now…
“Three hours in extreme heat.” She gripped her lurching stomach and fought back tears. “Three fucking hours of this? Are you kidding me?”
She couldn’t even think about the remaining rules. First, she had to survive the relentless sun.
How long had she been out here?
Pressing a finger against her forearm, she watched the indentation flash from white to pink. Her skin didn’t appear to be burnt. Yet.
She’d arrived at his house with maybe four or five hours left of daylight. Would he leave her out here until dusk? Or all night? Shackled and unprotected?