Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
“Why don’t you use your phone to follow your partner, in that case?”
“Her phone stopped pinging towers not long after the last call it made on the way to West Virginia. The truck was found outside Charleston. It was burned out.”
He is silent.
He knows something. I can fucking feel that he knows something.
“You should forget your friend,” he says. “Her world is forever changed, and I do not think she will ever return to yours.”
“What do you know?”
“Many things.”
“What do you know about Sally? People are missing her. You can’t just disappear women as and where it suits you. She has a life. She has a job. She has…”
“She’s not coming back.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“I haven’t decided it. She has.”
“If she’d decided to quit, she would have sent in a resignation. She would have at least emailed once. She wouldn’t have burned out her contact’s truck and gone ahead and dropped off the face of the planet.”
“You’re right,” he sighs.
Finally he agrees to the obvious. Sally’s disappearance is clearly linked to Justice, the mothman she fell head over heels for. I would buy the line about her running off with her monstrous lover, but she would have fucking called. She would have sent a text message. And she probably wouldn’t have set a truck on fire.
My detective instincts are kicking in again. If Sally is gone, and Justice is gone, then it seems like Order should be gone too. The reason they came to town, to hunt down their murderous brother, is no longer current. He should have scuttled off to where he came from by now.
“Why are you still here?”
“What do you mean?” He asks the question in a very clear attempt to evade the one I asked. I don’t say anything. I just wait. He’ll have to answer it eventually.
“You are such a serious little thing,” he says, stroking under my chin gently with one finger. “I can just imagine you intimidating criminals many time your size with sheer force of personality.”
“Answer the question,” I reply, sternly.
He smiles, amused by me. I am taking his role for a moment, that of the strict, dominating interrogator. And then he shocks me by actually answering the fucking question.
“I was hoping you would do what you have done. Come back to me.”
He’s sweet and absolutely psychotic all at the same time. He has been lying in wait for me, which would be creepy, except for the fact he warned me in advance. Not once has Order surprised me by doing something he did not tell me he would do. I walked back into his web and gave myself to him, and there is a part of me that wants to stay.
“So you waited for me, while Justice took Sally away somewhere and then, what, burned their van and just stopped communicating with you completely?”
“I just said that,” he replies bluntly. He’s distracted now, and I feel the loss of his intense attention. I don’t think he spared a single thought for Justice, let alone Sally since they left. I think he has been lying in wait for me. Thinking about me. I think his obsession has been so intense he hasn’t noticed how strange the entire situation has become.
“I need to contact Justice,” he says. “I would have expected communication. You…”
“I have to go to work,” I tell him. “If I’m late…”
“No,” he growls. “My little human pet does not work.”
“She does, though,” I reply.
“No. You are mine, and I will provide for you. You will stay here, with me. You will perform household tasks if you wish for entertainment, and you will be at my beck and call. You are no longer your own, Tessie. You are my pet. You will be kept.”
I suck my lower lip into my mouth as I try to come to terms with what he just said. There’s something very old fashioned about Order. Something almost as old as the decor in his abode. Wherever he came from, it’s not the same world I did.
“I will train you,” he continues. “I will have you obedient to my will, and you will be a happy little thing, doing as I…”
“You’re really not familiar with pets, are ya, bud,” I interrupt. “They rarely obey.”
“Mine will, or she will be punished.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes,” he intones. “I will spank you as necessary, Tessie. If you are a bad little pet, you will be disciplined.”
I don’t think he has any idea how much that threat turns me the fuck on, and I just got done orgasming all over him.
“Why are you smiling?” He asks the question sharply. “Do you imagine I am playing with you?”
“Oh, no, of course not.” Now I’m borderline giggling. It’s not the effect he was going for. I think he wanted me to be suitably subdued, perhaps even submissive. He picked the wrong pet woman for that.