Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 59310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
He did this to her, whoever he is.
But I’m not making it any easier. Even now, seeing red, my blood boiling over, I know I’m not helping. So I force myself to draw a deep breath, and when I speak again, my voice is a tad more controlled. “Get some things together. You’re coming with me.”
“What?” Her head snaps up, her mouth hanging open. I can’t help but remember those lips wrapped around my cock. Now they’re swollen, ugly. I’ll kill him with my bare hands, the son of a bitch.
“You heard me. Get your things, you have two minutes—otherwise, you’re coming empty-handed, but you are coming with me. I’ll have Rick come back to carry you out if need be.” I level a hard gaze at her, arms folding. “Now, Rowan.”
It seems I finally got through to her. She disappears into the bedroom, and I hear drawers opening and closing in a flurry of activity. A minute later, she emerges with a duffel bag which I take from her before ushering her out the door.
Once we’re in the car, with Rick at the wheel after a few murmured instructions from me, Rowan covers her face again. “I can’t stand anybody seeing me like this.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of.” I’m gentle but firm, pulling her hands away so I can see her. Now in daylight, it’s so much worse. There are finger marks on her throat. He squeezed her that hard. I’ve had my hand there and manage to avoid leaving a mark—and I wasn’t exactly gentle, either. How vicious is this bastard?
“You don’t know how it feels.” She sniffles, head hanging low. “I was so afraid you would want to see me before I healed.”
“Don’t worry about that now. You’re safe with me.”
She snorts, then looks at me in obvious fear. “Sorry. I believe you. It’s just that you don’t know him.”
My left hand is out of her field of vision, and it tightens into a fist. “Who is he?”
She releases a shuddery breath, obviously arguing with herself. It’s either that or the habit of concealing him is so deeply ingrained that she has to fight against the knee-jerk impulse to cover for him. Regardless of why, it takes a moment for her to answer. “My ex-boyfriend. Eric.”
Shitty name. “Does this Eric have a last name?”
“Walters.” Then she looks at me. “Why?”
“I like to know the full names of the people I want to hurt.”
“No, no, you can’t do anything.” Her eyes well up again. “Not because I’m afraid he’ll get hurt. I wish he would. But that’ll only make things worse for me in the end.”
“Do you believe I have anything to fear from him? Seriously.” I glance toward Rick, and she seems to get the hint since her head bobs up and down. “Tell me about Eric. And you. What’s the story here?” I want to hear every word, unvarnished. I want her to tell me everything, every last detail.
I want to play it over in my head as I watch him die.
Her hands twist in her lap. She stares down at them while speaking. “He’s the reason you couldn’t find anything about me online. Remember? When I first came to the club?”
That explains it. I’d almost forgotten. “So your name isn’t Rowan?”
“No, it is, but I closed out all of my online accounts before I left him. I saved up every penny I could for months and finally ran when I couldn’t take it anymore. He was out with his friends that night—I knew when he’d come home since he always showed up an hour or so after the bars closed. I can’t tell you how many times I sat up in bed, dreading the sound of him coming in. I got a fake driver’s license with a fake address, so there’s no true record of me in the DMV database anymore. I didn’t tell anybody—not like I have any friends to tell, anyway. He made sure of that. He made sure of a lot of things.”
“But he found you.”
She nods slowly. “I don’t know how. He didn’t say. He followed me to the mall and did this to me when I was in a dressing room.” Her voice cracks, and she wipes away a tear. “He’s crazy. He’s never gone that far before. Hitting me in public? He would never have done that.”
Because she’s no longer his. She ventured out on her own, away from him, and it enraged him worse than ever. I can almost imagine the level of rage that would drive a man to do something like what he did to her.
But that’s as far as it goes. Only the lowest man beats a woman, especially one as small and defenseless as Rowan. I’ve witnessed enough harm done in the name of satisfying a kink to know there are situations in which one or both parties might emerge wounded, hurt.