Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 127712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
“I don’t need your offer. I’m out of here in two months. I’m good. I can do two months standing on my head.”
“Well, that’s excellent, Locke. Because my offer is a bit like prison.”
I actually guffaw. “Is that so?”
“Indeed.” He’s smiling big now. And I realize… we’re playing some kind of game. Maybe he didn’t come here planning on playing that game, but when I started it with my surprisingly bold statement—well. Silas Mercer comes off as a man who doesn’t turn down a challenge.
I don’t know what to say next.
That’s not true. I want to say all kinds of things. I want to tell him that he’s got a nice mouth and I want to ask if I could kiss it.
Which is, once again, surprising. Because I’m not into men.
Until now.
Until him.
And just the mere thought of kissing him—like right here, in this room, him wearing that fucking suit and me in these ratty orange scrubs with the words PRISONER stenciled on the back of the shirt—just kinda does it for me. And then the familiar tightness begins as my cock starts to grow.
“Well, I think your sales pitch needs some work. I’ve had enough prison for two lifetimes.”
“Good. Because while some parts of what I’m offering feel a little similar to prison, no one here is paying you millions of dollars to attend prison, are they?”
Now he’s got my attention. I don’t know what I was expecting when the guards came to my bunk and told me that I had a visitor in a suit who is not my lawyer. But not once, in the ten minutes I had to think while I was being searched and led downstairs to this meeting room, did I imagine there would be money involved.
“I don’t get it. What are you going to pay me to do?”
“We’re going to pay you to graduate, Locke.”
I sneer out my words. “I took the GED when I was fifteen.”
“Not high school.” He kind of laughs these words out. “College. First undergrad, then grad school, and if things work out—well. We’ll see. Better to not get ahead of ourselves.”
I take a moment to think about this, unconcerned for how Silas Mercer might interpret my pause. Because even though I have known about my unusual IQ for many years now, no one has ever offered to send me to school.
All they’ve ever wanted to do was lock me up.
And the only reason they wanted to lock me up was so they could study me. They want to ask questions and then they expect answers. And I’m not interested in this kind of shit. No one has a right to my mind. No one has a right to my private thoughts. I’d rather spend the rest of my life in prison than let people into my head.
So this Mercer guy has come in prepared.
Which throws me just long enough to take a nibble at his bait. “Why?”
“Why?” He’s smirking at me. “Because”—he pans a hand at me—“you’re the whole package, Locke.”
“What does that mean?”
“Look at you. You’re… spectacular. Handsome, tall, dark.” He winks at me. “And smart. You’re exactly what I’m looking for.”
“Your goal in life is to send high-IQ juvenile delinquents to college?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, I’m into details, Mercer.” I use his surname the same way he started using mine. And it fits him. Silas… I dunno about that name. It conjures up images of the Bible for some reason. Mercer sounds like… ‘merciless.’
Which is actually quite interesting. My choice of ‘merciless’ instead of ‘merciful.’
He points to the glossy folder again. “They’re all in here. Shall we go over them?”
I shrug. But it’s a shrug of agreement.
So he opens the folder and pulls out the stacks of paperwork. And explains what he’s doing, and who he’s doing it for, and what my part in this whole thing will be.
One year.
I get to take some new drug and live a fantasy life on a special island in New Hampshire for one year and once that contract is over, I will be paid a million dollars.
But there’s a catch. This fantasy drug will only be administered after I finish school—which is also paid for.
“How long does it take?”
“How long does what take, Locke?”
“To do all this fucking school? Undergrad, grad school. It sounds like a waste of time, if you ask me.”
“It varies. For most people, about seven years. But you’re not most people, are you?” He winks again. And my cock—which has settled down considerably since he first turned me on—is growing again with the excitement of this new offer. “You will breeze through undergrad. Eighteen months, tops. But grad school is a different story because it’s dependent on your project.”
“What project?”
“Exactly. What project? You must come up with one. You must do science, Locke. And you must produce results.”