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 couldn’t fathom the amount of shit people shared about themselves on the internet, desperate to have someone, anyone, know them. As if they didn’t realize that in the right hands, that was the key to their ruin.
Benign personal information was the key to breaking her. While doing my supply run, the majority of what I purchased were meat products, very little vegetables or grains. That was intentional. She’d initially stick to her morals, the belief system she’d held as a marker of her identity. Then she’d get hungry. Eventually, she’d sacrifice who she was in order to survive.
And that would chisel off a little of her self-worth. Self-respect.
We had just over a month. Ideally, I would’ve had longer to draw out the process, have it be more subtle, but we didn’t have time. And now that I was stuck in a cabin with her, a month seemed like it might break me.
Such thoughts were obviously a sign of my mind finally fracturing. Madness was the only viable explanation for these feelings. Some five-foot-nothing civilian who smelled of peaches did not have the power to break me.
No one did.
Only me.
Only I had that power. And it was happening. All of my sins—committed in the name of survival, to feed that ravenous darkness inside of me—were finally eating at me. There would never be enough death, blood or depravity to keep me sane. I’d known that for a while.
Bad timing more than anything else.
But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t accomplish my goal. That I wouldn’t rip apart Piper and ensure she’d be begging to be taken to Stone.
Maybe my madness would help in doing just that. Or perhaps I’d bring us both down.
I hadn’t slept in days.
There had been too much to do. To prepare. I’d snatched a couple of hours here and there. I only slept a handful of hours on any given night anyway. Nightmares slithered in if I slept too deeply and for too long.
But this was less than even I was used to. I’d settled onto the sofa, hoping my body might shut down. Though I didn’t think it was possible for me to lapse into unconsciousness, knowing that Piper was in the same room as me. She was sleeping; I could hear the soft sighs coming from her, her body still.
When her breathing settled, and I stopped seeing any movement in the bed, I got up.
I wasn’t prone to making bad decisions. Every choice I made was calculated, precise, all possible consequences weighed.
Going anywhere near Piper for the purpose of doing anything other than breaking her will was a unilaterally bad decision.
My iron-clad control abandoned me as I stepped on soundless feet to stand at her bedside.
She’d yanked the covers up to her chest and was still clutching them in her sleep. She was tense, protecting herself, even in sleep. A normal person, a good person, might’ve felt a stab of guilt at that.
Then again, a good person never would’ve taken her captive in the first place.
My eyes traced the curves and ridges of her face. Her high cheekbones, her delicate nose, the gentle flaring of her nostrils as she inhaled. Her long lashes framed exquisite espresso and gold-flecked eyes.
Her rosebud lips were swollen, as if she’d been chewing on them all night. The arch at the top of her lip was enchanting. I wanted it wrapped around my dick.
Wanted her wrapped around my dick.
I’d always known I was sick, but not this sick. Not capable of watching my captive sleep with my cock hard, seconds away from coming all over her just by thinking about her.
It was shameful. Fucking creepy.
Yet I’d stayed there for an age, watching her chest move, memorizing the ridges of her face, cock standing at attention, refusing to sate my need. I didn’t do that. Didn’t give myself pleasure I didn’t deserve. Primarily because when I was done, I felt dirtier than before, and the call of the knife was louder, the need to cut through the filth undeniable.
By the time I finally forced my feet to walk back to the sofa, I’d given in to the call of the steel, exhaling as the familiar bite of pain eased the tension. But not enough. Nowhere near enough as it had in the past. Madness was truly near, then. If the one thing I could always rely upon had abandoned me. Wired and frustrated, I stared at the ceiling for hours before sheer exhaustion finally took me.
I was contemplating my fate. A month in this cabin with her. My control was already frayed, damn near destroyed, after one fucking night.
The urge to run was palpable.
But running meant defeat.
Running meant my death.
I had to stay. And I’d keep my hands off her.
She was Stone’s. I’d deliver her to him, willing and ready to be his wife. No matter how sick the prospect made me.