Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 89228 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89228 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
She nodded, her eyes gleaming with an inner light. “I know. Just come home.”
Fuck, he loved her so much it hurt. If anything happened to him, if he wasn’t able to return, would she die of starvation? He shoved a hand through his hair, his fingers clenching. “I promise.”
Van stepped into the thick black foyer of the Curie Lounge in downtown Austin. Pockets of dim light flickered above the tables. Every chair in the house was filled, maybe a hundred or more live-music enthusiasts sitting back, enjoying a drink and a sexy voice. They wouldn't be disappointed in the latter.
Humming through the speakers was the sound that had haunted him for years. There were no instruments. Just the terraced rippling of her voice, reverberating seductive notes along a man's cock, reaching deep inside him, the only warning she gave before she ate his soul and spit it out. He shivered.
She stood beneath a spotlight in the corner of the large room, eyes closed and sheathed tits to feet in a black gown as she sang a bluesy melody with a sultry sway of her hips.
Remarkable how he didn’t entertain a single obsessive thought for the woman. Amber had truly cured his fever.
Pinching the paper bag between his arm and side, he scanned the lounge for her clunkier half and his gaze collided with Joshua Carter's wide eyes at the far end. The man shot from his chair, all six-foot-two of him, his expression shifting from shock to fury. The burly linebacker glanced at Liv, ten feet away, and back again.
Joshua wasn't a bad looking guy. Age twenty-two or twenty-three with black hair, he had that chiseled jaw women loved and green eyes, which were really narrowed and pissed right now. But even so, Van would've gladly fucked him if he didn't have something better waiting for him at home.
And that something was tied to his banister, waiting for his cock. Damn, he needed to speed this along.
As Joshua strode toward him, choosing a path that blocked his view of Liv, he let his gaze rest on those furious flames of green sparking in the dim light. A year ago, he'd been Joshua's captor. He hadn't fucked him, but there'd been some non-consensual kissing and dick stroking. A friendly greeting was probably too much to ask.
Because of the money he’d wired Liv, Joshua knew he’d survived the gunshot wound. Beyond that, did his former slave assume he was still trafficking slaves? What were the chances they’d even hear him out?
He slid a toothpick between his lips and closed the distance. This should be fun.
As Van approached the charging ex-football player, it reminded him of a game of chicken. Who would yield first? Or the worst possible outcome, neither of them. Amidst a crowded bar of patrons, the confrontation needed to be handled delicately, which wasn't a strength he'd mastered.
At the center of the room, Joshua's hand landed on his shoulder in a hard grip, those tightly pinned lips lowering to his ear. The voice he'd heard groaning orgasmically through his mics for six months was now harsh and clipped. “What do you want?”
Van leaned back, deliberately removed the toothpick, and glared at the hand on his shoulder until it dropped. “What, no hello kiss? Afraid my tongue might make you come again?”
A sharp inhale. “Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of. Right now.”
So much anger in those eyes. He didn't remember wrangling that much of a reaction when the man was bound and nude in his attic. “Down, boy. I'm not here to fuck you or your girl. I just need to talk with her.”
Joshua glanced over his shoulder at Liv, and Van used the opportunity to catch her eyes.
As her gaze clashed with his, she belted her voice through an eerie cascade of notes, the scar on her cheek a shadowed line beneath the angle of the lighting. She excelled at hiding her emotions beneath a cool facade, her intentions well disguised through cunning and underhandedness. She appeared to be lost in song, but she was probably planning the hundred and one ways he would die when she finished the set.
Whether it was by coincidence or design, she ended the melody with a hum, and stepped out of the spotlight, heading directly for them amidst the rise of applause.
When she reached them, her hip-swishing gait carried her right on by and to an isolated table in the corner. Joshua trailed her like an obedient puppy, and they slid into one side of the booth.
Returning the toothpick to his mouth, Van took the opposite seat and set the doll beside him. Liv knew he’d collected dolls over the years. The night she’d shot him, he let her see replicas made with her hair for the first time. He hadn’t seen her reaction. No doubt it was one of horror. He’d never explained what they meant to him. Maybe someday he could trust her enough to tell her.