Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 101882 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101882 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
“What’s the difference?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.
Horse rolled onto his side and propped his head up on one elbow looking down at me.
“You,” he said.
“Me?”
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Horse said, reaching over and tracing the curve of my cheek. “The Jacks will. No question of it. He should know that.”
“You said they were trying to take me back to him,” I said softly. “He’s trying to save me.”
“The Jacks will get you if they can, but their record with women isn’t too good. Three years ago Deke had a niece, Gracie, get in trouble with them. His old lady’s sister’s kid. No connection to the club, other than that. She decided to go to school down in California and turns out she wasn’t far from a Jacks charter. Started dating a guy who seemed nice enough, but he was one of their hangarounds. Apparently she mentioned her uncle was in the Reapers at some point. She went to a party with him and they raped her. All of them. One big fucking train, nearly killed her. They finished her off by carving ‘DJ’ on her forehead. Dumped her by the side of the road. Sent Deke a picture afterward taken with her own phone.”
I swallowed, feeling sick. Then I thought about the woman on the second floor, and wondered if she’d finished with those men yet. What if she wanted to stop halfway through? Would they let her?
“What about downstairs?” I asked, mouth getting away from my brain. “What makes that any different?”
Horse cocked his head.
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s a woman downstairs, I saw her in a room with a bunch of guys on the second floor. They were taking turns…”
“Fuck…” Horse muttered, dropping onto his back and running his hands through his hair. “What else is gonna fall to shit tonight? I’m sorry you saw that, babe. I didn’t think about that at all. Shit.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Are they going to hurt her?”
“No!” he said, sitting up and looking down at me. “Shit, no, I can’t believe you have to ask that. We’re not a bunch of rapists, Marie. Shit. If she’s in there, she chose to be there. Fuck if I know why, but women do it all the time. It’s a thing with some of the sweet butts, like counting coup or something. I can’t exactly defend it as upstanding behavior, but that’s nothing like what they did to Gracie. They tore her up so bad, I can’t even explain it. She’ll never have kids. She tried to kill herself twice before they got her into some kind of psychiatric facility. Damn.”
He looked so genuinely upset that I believed him.
“How often does it happen?” I asked softly. “What else goes on at your parties?”
“All kinds of shit happens at parties,” Horse said, sighing heavily. “But that’s really none of your business. It’s wilder tonight because there’s blood in the air, that’s all. Nobody’s getting hurt and nobody’s here against their will. That’s all you need to know.”
“Have you done it?”
He shook his head, although whether he was denying it or just making it clear I couldn’t expect an answer, I couldn’t tell.
“Are we really gonna do this?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Dig up everything either of us has ever done? I thought we were over that. I’m not a saint, babe, and I’ve never pretended to be. But I promised you that I wouldn’t cheat on you and I haven’t. I won’t. I trust that you won’t either. Isn’t that good enough?”
I nodded, wondering if killing children fell under the category of “not being a saint”.
“You need to write back to Jeff,” he said abruptly. “The faster we work through this the better.”
I nodded and grabbed my phone. It took about three minutes to type out the message, which he read over before hitting send. It was simple enough—I asked Jeff to call me and told him I was safe with the Reapers but that the Jacks were dangerous. I was afraid of them.
I set the phone down on the little bedside table. Horse reached over, pulling me to him, kissing me as his fingers reached between my legs. I resisted at first, turning my head away, tensing. He just rubbed up and down, slowly and steadily, as he leaned over and started on my breasts. He licked at them, sucking my nipples in and then flicking his tongue until I twisted against him, wanting more even though I despised myself for it.
Jeff claimed the man was a murderer. Yet when Horse hooked two of his fingers deep inside me I crumbled, spreading my legs and mewling for more, pumping my hips against his fingers. He slid farther down the bed, taking my knees and pushing them up and over his shoulders as his mouth covered my clit. Horse had the tongue of a devil, sliding around my little nub, alternating between teasing it and fluttering, then moving to suck just strong enough to almost hurt me but not quite. The entire time he worked me over inside until I twisted and moaned against him, hovering on the edge of climax.