Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83519 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83519 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
My blood didn’t pump harder every time I got out of the shower with what? Hope? That she was going to be sitting on my bed.
I’m disappointed in the way I feel.
And admittedly, disappointed she hasn’t shown her damn face.
I growl at the kitchen counter when I cut it too close and bang my hip into it.
I’m not the type of man to let every little thing bother him.
Well, I wasn’t.
I spent the last two days traveling, needing to get out of this damn house, and even in returning things it still feels off, a little out of place. There’s something I can’t put my finger on, and it’s bugging the shit out of me.
I’m restless, annoyed, wishing she was here just so I could take my frustrations out on her.
“I swear to fucking God,” I mutter when I sit in my office chair and coffee spills on my jeans.
One deep breath in. One long breath out.
I’m not one for using any type of calming techniques. Spilling blood normally does that to me, but there’s no fucking blood to spill right now, and it’s making me antsy.
With a clenched jaw and heavy hands, I pull up my computer program for work. I’ve spent way too long hanging around here, thinking she’ll find me. It’s time to get back to work.
Lauren Vos isn’t a part of my life. She never was. She never will be.
I scroll, finding myself looking at faces more than price tags, and that irritates the hell out of me too.
Who these people are shouldn’t matter. The amount I’d be able to put into my account is all I should care about.
The thrill I normally get when searching for a job is dulled somehow. It doesn’t carry the same rush I’m accustomed to.
The girls being sold on the dark web all look the same—beaten, broken, abused. If I had a heart, it would probably make me sad.
My fingers freeze on an image, my throat threatening to seize, and my earlier declaration of not having a heart is betrayed by the damn thing beginning to pound in my chest.
She’s there. Lauren. Glassy, barely opened eyes looking at the camera.
She looks worse than I’ve ever left her.
I no longer see that same fire, the defiance in her eyes.
It’s only been three days since I got back home.
Three days since she left me sleeping in the motel room across town.
Did she leave to go get coffee or something and get swiped from the street?
I’ve been agitated by the memories of her, and yet she’s been going through horrific things.
My anger grows as I take further stock of her.
There are bruises on her skin that I didn’t leave behind, and the sight of them enrages me. The fact that someone other than me thinks they can hurt her makes me fucking murderous.
Instinct tells me to throw my computer across the room, but logically that won’t help anyone.
I set about buying her, keying in my information, and waiting to be directed to a secure account.
I won’t make a payment for her past the deposit required, but as I make that transfer, my fingers ache for the feel of her throat under my hand.
If she thought I was rough when I hate fucked her before, it’s going to have nothing on what’s coming.
She had to have done this to herself. She’s too smart, too wily, to get abducted without letting it happen.
As I wait, I pace the room.
Other men touching her, tasting her, taking her.
I roar into the room, my fist striking the fucking wall.
Who the fuck do they think they are, touching what’s mine?
The thought should stop me in my tracks, but the adrenaline, the need to feel their blood on my hands, won’t allow it.
Mine.
I normally hate the word unless it has to do with money or the serenity I usually find at home.
Pacing isn’t helping. If anything, it’s only making me more annoyed, but there’s literally nothing I can fucking do until the sellers get back to me.
I have no fucking clue where she’s at. She could be a few miles from here or she could be in South America already.
I leave my office because the real chance of destroying my computer equipment is growing with each pass I make across the room.
I grab everything I’ll need for a longer trip, but I also get together a bag for a short trip, pulling out different forms of identification, weapons I’ll need, and the cash required for travel and her purchase.
If I spend this hard-earned fucking money on her, she’ll never leave my sight again.
The thought of actually owning her fucking thrills me, but it does nothing to make the anger I’m feeling dissipate.
I’m mad at the world at this fucking point. At her, at them, at anyone who threatens to get in my fucking way on my path to retrieve her.