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 answered with a heart-breaking sob, but he didn't miss the slight nod of her head. With heart-racing strides, he rounded the car in the three seconds. But he was too late.
When he opened the door, the look on her face lanced a new scar, right through his heart. Her eyes were wide and terrified and locked on the restaurant's glass windows, on the patrons inside. Makeup streaked her cheeks, marking the paths of her tears, her complexion ghostly white. Her fingernails dug so deeply into her palms, when he pried them loose, blood smeared over the broken skin.
“I can't...I can't...I can't...” she choked between wheezing breaths.
His blood heated, and his chest tightened. She’d wanted to do this, wanted to be pushed. Well, not like this. No goddamned way. He'd have to carry her inside, and her humiliation from that alone would only cause her more suffering.
He kissed her gasping mouth, hard and angrily, and slammed the door. He'd brought this pain on her. He’d fucking failed her.
On his sprint back to the driver's side, he glanced through the restaurant window. Liv and Joshua sat in a booth in the back corner, heads bowed over a shared menu. His gait slowed, but only for a second. There'd be another time, another chance. And if not, fuck them. He'd find different way, one that didn't destroy Amber.
He climbed behind the wheel and found her slumped over her lap, her head crooked in an awkward angle. The backs of his eyes burned as he reclined her seat back and positioned her limp body beneath the seatbelt. Then he drove his broken doll home.
Hope had a way of leading a guy on, offering tantalizing glimpses of possibilities and enticing him to the edge of belief. But it didn't put out. Van had been on the giving end of such things throughout his criminal history, which made it even more harrowing to watch Amber succumb to hope's cruel disappointment.
A month had passed since the drive to the restaurant, and she'd regressed, immediately and spectacularly.
“Get up.” He stood over the bed where she spent the majority of the day, every day.
She rolled to her back, blinking heavy eyelids, and held out her arms. “Make love to me.” She dropped her arms and looked away. “Please?”
His body felt cold, his heart weighted down with the ache it had been carrying for too damned long. Maybe her devastation was partly due to her disappointment in herself. But he knew the bigger part was in her inaccurate belief that she'd disappointed him.
He yanked back the sheets and let his weight press down on her nude body. He could never deny her, not even now in her numb state of existence. With a hand on her face, he held her eyes and gave her the words he repeated daily. “I love you, I want you, and I will never ever be disappointed in you.”
She kissed him. Her usual response, maybe some kind of coping mechanism.
He matched her licks and nibbles then took over, leading her, controlling this. It was what she wanted and what he needed. He released his belt and opened his jeans, her hands already on his cock, stroking it to readiness.
As he worked himself into her wet heat, her eyes glowed. These were the only moments when he saw that light, the only way he seemed to be able to bring her out of her head. Not the belt nor the whip nor his restraints affected her. Not even when he hauled her outside every night. She'd lost interest in everything but him. And his cock.
It wasn't healthy, and it didn't help her. He was a toxin, polluting her mind and making her worse. If he let this go on, he would destroy her.
He brought her to climax, and as he followed her over the brink of momentary bliss, her words rushed in, punching an agonizing hole through his heart.
You're the only person who has ever given enough of a shit about me to shove me out the door.
As he held her limp body in his arms, the vibrancy in her eyes dulled to blankness. She sank into the mattress, her heat pulling away, and a frigid void slipped between them. It was slow and subtle and perhaps unintentional, but her detachment strained and ripped every nerve-ending in his body.
God, he wanted her light back. He would ejaculate inside her over and over if it could fill her with life. But the sex was fleeting. If anything, she was colder and more despondent after they made love.
He wanted to argue that he loved her too much to shove her out the door. Truth was he loved her too much not to. Just like her behavior with the deliverymen, she was only getting by without getting better.
And he’d become another Zachary Kaufman.