Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 127484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
I hadn’t told her where we were going, what to pack for. That wasn’t my job. I hadn’t known what I expected her to be wearing, but definitely not a skintight pair of jeans that showed off her juicy ass, a faded Fleetwood Mac tee and leopard print sneakers. That had glitter on them. The attire wasn’t conventionally sexual, but regardless, I found it infinitely appealing.
“Excuse me.” She put her hand on her chest. “I didn’t mean to offend.”
Wrong move.
It brought my attention to her tits.
Small. Perky. Fucking perfect for her frame.
That withered thing inside of me that was desire woke up.
I struggled against the stiffening of my cock. It was a foreign feeling, more than unnerving to have no control over my own body. To experience such profound weakness.
“If you know the origin of wood, then you may understand we’re in the Appalachian Mountains in spring,” she said, thankfully unaware of my hard cock. “Daytime is still quite warm, but the nights will turn frigid.” She looked around the room. “Especially in something like this without the updates it needs.” She sucked her teeth. “I don’t want to be cold on top of being a captive. Therefore, we need wood for that.” She motioned to the fireplace. It took up a decent amount of space in the room, stained black and shrouded with cobwebs.
Though a lot of blood had pumped to my cock at that moment, I could still use my brain. She was right; we needed wood. I hadn’t thought about that. I hadn’t thought much about the logistics of any of this. I’d gotten food, rudimentary supplies, everything you technically needed to survive, but not the finer details.
Unlike me. Very unlike me.
Granted, my usual hunting grounds were decidedly more urban than this, but that wasn’t the excuse. It was her. It had been her since the moment I saw her. She had me off-kilter. Sloppy.
Her green eyes danced with amusement, but they were also penetrating, as if they saw right through me. Into my soul. But that couldn’t be true. I didn’t have one of those.
“There’s an axe outside,” she continued.
I hadn’t seen it.
Sloppy.
Very fucking sloppy.
I’d scouted the surrounding area, ensured that there was only one usable road in and out of the property, the woods dense and full of predators. Nearest neighbor was fifty miles away. I’d made certain that there was no way for her to escape, but I stupidly hadn’t taken stock of things that could be used as weapons.
She was 5′5′′ at best, one hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet. Her eyes were wide and innocent, though she was full of curves and substantial—she looked like she wouldn’t hurt a fucking fly, let alone me. Even though I was holding her captive. Even though I was intending on breaking her like a broodmare.
But people were animals. And no matter how shapely her hips were, how soft her edges, how big her eyes, a cornered animal would attack. Always.
Part of me—that rotten, wrong, evil part of me—itched for her to fight me, to sink her fingernails into my skin, coat her hands in my blood.
“Do you know how to chop wood?” she asked, innocent as can be. But her lips were pursed in a way that made it distinctly clear she was trying to hide a smile.
It was almost as if she was … teasing me.
No one, not a single person who had interacted with me, had dared tease me. Except perhaps my brother, but even he was careful with his actions around me. He protected himself, cautious with his words. Even him—the one person on this hunk of rock who saw me as something more than a killer—knew to keep his guard up around me.
Piper, despite being my literal fucking captive, was not guarding anything about herself. This woman seemed to have absolutely no self-preservation. How she’d survived all these years was anyone’s guess. A trait that I should’ve found deplorable, not … endearing.
“I know how to chop wood,” I replied after a long silence she didn’t seem to be in a rush to fill. She hadn’t dropped her eyes from mine either.
Though I had lied to some of the most dangerous people in the world, had made them not so much as second-guess me, this woman seemed to see through me in a second. The tilt of her lips, the arch in her eyebrow, the overall victory glistening in her golden eyes.
I had never chopped wood in my life.
I had chopped up people, though, so I was sure it was a similar process.
“Okay, well… Even though I’m sure you’ll be excellent at chopping wood, I really need the exercise since it doesn’t seem like these accommodations feature a gym,” she explained, eyes sparkling playfully.
Again, my dick twitched at the teasing in her tone, the confidence in the face of her situation, the terror and panic of before nowhere to be seen. Piper was a survivor. She wasn’t weak, her strength unlike anything I’d ever seen. To cultivate a warmth inside of herself that resulted in her being able to find the will to smile in a situation as dire as this was unlike anything I had ever experienced.