Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Until my feet have almost left the ground and I’m up on my tiptoes.
Essentially, hanging me from the tree.
When he’s satisfied with how my body has been stretched and arranged, he takes the rest of the rope, throws it up and over the branch again, and makes a noose that he then finishes off with a knot. Crazily, I think he’s so tall that he didn’t even have to stretch himself all the way up while doing that.
I also think I’m dreaming. That this is not real. I’m not really trussed up from a tree, my arms outstretched above me, my toes grazing the ground. It’s not my body that’s stretched to its limit, and it’s not my eyes burning with tears, not my heart that’s quaking.
Not my savior who’s done this to me.
Finally, he locks his dark eyes with mine, and I realize this is real. So very real. It’s in the way he takes me in. From the top of my tied hands to the bottom of my flexed feet. It’s in the way he goes for his T-shirt. His arm reaches back and fists the neck of it before he takes it off. I lose my breath at the sight of his bare chest, all large and strong, dusted with dark hair and stacked with dense muscles. If I thought that bandage on his shoulder would make a difference in the sheer power and dominance he exudes, then I was wrong. In fact, it makes him look even more dangerous.
Just like that brand.
Letting his T-shirt drop and still taking me in like I’m his trussed-up piece of art, he prowls toward me. Shivering, I twist my hands in the bonds. “Please.”
Please take me down. Please don’t do this. Please just let me hold on to you like before so I can feel safe.
I don’t say any of it, but I know he hears me nonetheless. Because his perusal ends and his eyes come back to mine. And they come back with a look so bright and blatant that I’m hit with it in the center of my chest. It’s like a rope around my wrists, my heart, binding me, choking me.
It’s a look of pure ownership.
Pure possession. It’s a look that says I’ll take what he gives me because I have no choice. Because he holds my free will in the palm of his hand.
My arms shake in the bonds. “Don’t… Please don’t do this. Whatever it is that you’re thinking. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I ran. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I promise I won’t do it again. I won’t run. I promise. Please, just—”
I feel a jerk then.
In my body, in my dress, and that makes me stumble, even though I’m all tied up and my toes barely touch the ground. I glance down to see his large hands fisting the strap of my dress, right where it meets the bodice. And then I watch his knuckles jut out and his hands shake as in one clean go, he rips it right off. He tears that flimsy ribbon of a strap that holds my dress up right in front of my eyes before going for the second one and doing the same thing.
Just as I feel my dress rustling down my skin and collapsing around my body, I snap my eyes up to look at him. “That was my… Y-you just tore my wedding dress.”
His thickly stubbled jaw clenches in response, but other than that, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, I feel another jerk around my body. This time I don’t have to look to know what he’s doing.
He’s tearing off my panties; I know that. I know his rough hands are fisting the waistband at my hips, and just like the dress, he tears it off my body like tissue paper; and all I can do is blink as I feel the night air brushing through my bare curves. As humiliation burns a path through the center of my chest and belly, all the way down to that pulsing place between my thighs.
The only consolation so far is that he hasn’t looked at me yet. My thick, curvy, source-of-all-shame body. He’s busy taking in my face with impassive features.
No, not impassive.
There’s a pulse in his jaw that looks painful. Or maybe it’s my humiliation that’s an ache in my chest. Whatever it is, I want it to be over. I want us to not hurt anymore. And straining on my toes, I arch my body up. I raise my chin toward him and whisper, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve learned my l-lesson. Just p-please put me down. Please, Arsen.”
Once again, his name on my tongue feels like an aphrodisiac. A sweet elixir that I was denying myself for so long. I was, wasn’t I? I didn’t want to say it because I was so angry at him for lying to me. I still am, but now that I’ve said his name, I never want to stop.