Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 37748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 189(@200wpm)___ 151(@250wpm)___ 126(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 189(@200wpm)___ 151(@250wpm)___ 126(@300wpm)
“That’s my girl. See, you’re learning.” I smile, then tug her hair. She stumbles to my side as I push her toward the open trunk. “You’ve always been smart.”
There are pillows and blankets and a battery-powered Minion’s nightlight. She may not have been a little girl when I became her stepfather, but she’s still scared of the dark. I’m not a man without a heart, it’s just black.
“In,” I demand, pointing the knife, and this time she does as she’s told.
CHAPTER 4
Bijou
Who wakes up in the morning thinking, today’s a great day for my stepfather to slice up my ass and throw me in the trunk of his car?
No. One. Ever.
“You’ve lost your damn mind!” I hiss as Ramses, a.k.a. my stepfather once removed, lashes a tie around my ankles holding the knife between his teeth.
The intrusive thoughts of how hot he looks right now only make me want to kick him in the ribs again. His teeth glint against the blade, his high set cheekbones and way his jaw sits at right angles to everything make the burning in my belly turn molten.
“Not sure I ever had it when it comes to you, daughter.”
He helps me into the trunk of his Bentley with a grunt and a toss. Inside, he’s heaped about ten blankets and a slew of down pillows. He’s clearly been planning this, but, okay he’s a psycho who doesn’t want me rolling around like a lost potato in the trunk.
Those tattoos that cover his upper body have always made me weak. There’s nothing like a broody, dangerous man in a ten-thousand-dollar suit covered in indigo tribal ink. Amiright?
In the years he was married to my mother, I barely remember him showing any emotion besides a soft smile on my birthdays. He always made sure my mother went all out with a celebration and enough gifts to fill a semi but his demeanor was flatline most of the time.
He took care of us with cars and drivers and every indulgence a black Amex could produce, but he was always three steps away. Calm indifference seemed to be his overarching mood, but now?
Now?
He’s gone crazy train loco, and I knew this was part of him. I grew up as a mafia princess, so to speak, even though my bio-dad was sort of a second-rate mobster always trying to up his game and failing miserably taking out his anger on my mother and me. I understand the life.
So, when the FBI guy showed up at the house, I panicked. I should have known word would get back to Ramses eventually. I just didn’t imagine it would be so fast.
Terror and heat take turns coursing through my body as I look up at the man who helped raise me in his own quiet, deluded way.
The terror I understand, but the heat?
The wet magma, erupting volcano, lava flow of heat between my legs is a betrayal of the likes I may never understand.
Truth is, I know why most any woman would be drawn to him.
Ramses is a man of epic proportions, for starters. Six-five and just so, perfectly balanced.
Not too big like a gym rat but with enough bulk and hard muscle that you understand he’d have no issue snapping your back like a pretzel stick.
Then there’s those eyes. They could cut a diamond with their black-rimmed blue irises.
He’s got one hand around my throat, the knife still clenched between his Hollywood-perfect teeth, while his other hand…
His. Other. Hand.
Is on my breast, down under my dress, grabbing on like he’s about to tug it right off my body.
“Please.” I wince, the fear and lust like twisting vipers inside of me. “Don’t do this. I’ll retract what I said to the FBI. I’ll say I was…” Think, Bijou, think. “I’ll tell him I was high, I couldn’t consent to the interview at all and what I said was just ketamine-induced psychosis. I read about that in one of my law books. A perp got out of a confession that way.”
As he looms above, I swear he’s bigger than I remember. Even a little bulkier in his chest. I’ve seen him shirtless over the years, so I know what he’s packing under those handmade suits.
My friends at school always said…he’s not like the other dads.
True dat.
His tattoos always fascinated me, even more now that I’m close enough to see how they swell and flow over his knuckles and the back of his hand, wrapping around his wrist in balanced patterns of geometric blue-black to disappear under the cuff of his shirt.
My pleas only have his hand working harder on my breast, fingers pinching and pulling at my peaked nipple and zapping my nerves with a cascade of fear and desire as I struggle against the silk bonds.
There’s something wrong with me.
Why am I so wet?