Total pages in book: 26
Estimated words: 24566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 123(@200wpm)___ 98(@250wpm)___ 82(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 24566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 123(@200wpm)___ 98(@250wpm)___ 82(@300wpm)
“It sure seems like it,” I sigh. “You should have seen them. They were flirting like they’d fucked for years. And she had a gun on her hip like she came from his world, you know?”
Riley shrugs. “Maybe he doesn’t want a girl from his world. Maybe he wants a girl like you. The yin to his yang, so to speak.”
“Maybe…” I reply, not so convinced. “Or maybe he’s just another male pig fighter who wants to stick his dick in everything that moves, and I fell for it.”
Riley comes over and sits down on the couch next to me.
“You’re overthinking it. Just talk to him. You guys are miscommunicating like an old married couple and you’re not even a couple yet!”
“But we’re going to be?” I ask.
Riley smiles at me the way my mom smiles at me when I’m acting silly. “Look, I’ve got to go meet Tasha and the girls, but I’ll be back around eleven. We’ll talk more about it then, okay?”
“Okay. Have fun.”
“You sure you don’t want to come? Male strippers!”
“No.” I shake my head. “Gonna go to the library and get some work done.”
“That’s you.” Riley smiles. “Always the studious one.”
She gives me a friendly peck on the forehead and heads out, leaving me sprawled out like a bag of potatoes on the couch, feeling sorry for myself.
I can’t get the image of Jessica out of my head, standing there with her American flag hat and her navy green T-shirt and her gun holster on her hip, staring at Gunnar like she’s got some kind of possessive control over him or something.
And then seeing him march right up to him and throw his arms around her…
Instantly, I’m on my feet and tossing my bag over my shoulder.
It’s time to go to the library.
I take the stairs and head outside. It’s cool and cloudy out as I walk across campus, cutting across the quad, which is oddly quiet for this time of night. A group of guys pass me by, and one of them gives me a look over his shoulder. I’m pretty sure I hear him say, “There she is,” to the guy beside him, but maybe I’m being paranoid.
All the same, I cut to the side between one of the dorms and the dining hall, just to get away from them, and at that exact second, I feel a presence behind me.
I try to turn around, but before I can even react, a hand claps over my mouth and another seizes both my arms and pins them behind my back. My heartrate skyrockets, and I try to scream, but it’s no use.
The next thing I know, I’m being pinned to the ground, face first, completely unable to move, beneath the enormous weight of a man ten times stronger than me.
I struggle, but it’s hopeless. A knee in my back pins me down, holding me in place. Panic is one millisecond from flooding through me, when the man’s scent enters my nostrils.
I know that scent.
Suddenly, my heart nearly leaps out of my chest.
“You see, Nina,” Gunnar whispers into my ear. “This is why you need to carry pepper spray on you at all times.”
He instantly lets go of me, and I roll over onto my back to see him standing over me grinning, extending a hand to help me to my feet. I slap it away and get up on my own.
“Seriously!?” I snap. “You almost gave me a heart attack, jerk!”
Gunnar laughs and reaches out to hand me something. I don’t take it right away, but he steps forward, grabs my right hand and places it in my palm.
“Here. Put this on your keychain, because as you can see, you can’t be walking around vulnerable for any crazy asshole rapist to come and attack you.”
I look down and see a clear plastic package holding some kind of little pink stick inside.
“What is it?”
“That, Nina, is pepper spray. Don’t you have friends who have it?”
“Actually yeah, I think Kat might,” I reply. “I can’t use this, though…I’ll end up like blinding myself or something.”
“Well come on then, I’ll show you how.” Gunnar takes my hand in his massive, callused grip and begins pulling me away back toward my dorm. “This way, right?”
“Um, yeah. How did you know that?”
“I dropped you off here, remember?”
“Oh, right,” I reply. My heart is still pounding–kind of shaking inside my chest really–as he leads me along behind him. He takes me out to an empty space in the parking lot and takes the pepper spray from me and tears the plastic open, releasing the little pink stick inside.
“So this little switch here?” he asks, showing me a slide on the top. “This is like the safety on a gun. You just slide this to the side and this sucker’s good to go. Then you just aim, keep your thumb back, and press down at the bastard you want to fuck up.”