Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Desperation claws at my insides, and I surge to my feet. A sort of fevered madness overtakes me, and I start tearing the room apart, as though I’ll uncover some secret that will make sense of everything.
I wrench open the nightstand drawer, and my heart skips a beat. My fingers tremble as I reach out to touch the black wool. Part of me hopes it’s a hallucination, but the material is all too real in my hands.
I stare down at the macabre skull that’s painted onto the black ski mask.
My brain blanks. My body goes numb.
I can’t process this. I can’t accept it.
“You shouldn’t be here, little dove.”
I whirl, and Dane is standing behind me. He’s covered in mud and something crimson that makes my stomach turn.
The man I love has blood on his face.
He’s here. In this awful shrine to me.
Little dove.
He’s never called me that before.
That’s GentAnon’s nickname for me.
“No.” My tremulous whisper is barely audible.
It’s him.
He’s my dark god.
He’s my online confidante.
He’s the masked man who violated me.
They’re all the same man. They’re all him.
32
DANE
Something sharp pierces my chest, robbing my breath. She’s not supposed to be here.
She was never supposed to see this.
She was never supposed to know.
I came back here to get cleaned up, so that I wouldn’t be covered in blood and grime when I returned home.
Now, she sees the ugly truth of what I am.
I’m her stalker.
Her attacker.
Her villain.
I was a fool to ever delude myself into thinking I could be something else to her, something more.
“Tell me it’s not true.” Her lovely eyes are shining, but her tears don’t bring me a shred of pleasure this time.
“Abigail,” I rasp.
My stomach knots, and I reach for her.
She cringes away.
“Tell me it’s not true!” The words are a desperate shriek this time.
I grasp her shoulders, forcibly pulling her to me. Her fists beat at my chest like the frantic beats of a trapped bird’s wings.
“Let me go!”
“No,” I refuse. My fingers bite into her soft flesh, preventing her from putting an inch of space between us. “You love me.”
If I say it, it might still be true.
Her cheeks are chalk white, and her jaw is slack with horror.
“You violated me.”
The truth in her soft whisper hits me like a gut punch.
“It was you!” she rails.
The skull mask is still clenched in her fist, irrefutable evidence of my sin against her…
I wait in the midnight shadows of her apartment. Abigail will come home from the bar at some point, and I can be patient. Every moment that passes sharpens my senses, heightening my awareness of the world in a way I’ve never known before.
The thrill of hunting my pretty prey is the most addictive feeling I’ve ever experienced.
Abigail wants this. We’ve been exchanging dark fantasies for months.
Our desires are perfectly matched.
But I’m tired of keeping things virtual.
She’ll find as much pleasure in this twisted encounter as I will. I’ll make sure of it.
“You liked it,” I say, even as my stomach lurches. “You came all over my hand.”
She looks up at me like I’ve betrayed her on a level she never could’ve imagined.
The knife in my chest twists, an awful, shredding sensation.
“I knew we were meant to be together,” I continue, as though I can salvage this. “That’s why I came into the café and asked you out. You were meant to be mine.”
“I’m not yours!” The words are wrenched from her chest on an anguished cry.
I wrap my arms around her, caging her in an unbreakable embrace. “You are. Nothing will change that. You love me.”
She does love me.
She has to.
“I’m scared,” she whispers. “You’re scaring me. Let me go.”
“I can’t do that.” It’s a rough statement of fact.
I’m incapable of letting her go.
She writhes in my hold, and she opens her pretty mouth to scream.
I harden my resolve. If she sees me as her villain, then that’s what I’ll be.
I spin her around and clamp my hand over her mouth before she can cry out for help. My other arm captures her throat, applying pressure to her arteries.
We’ve played like this before, but this time, it’s not a game.