Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“Despite your poor judgment so far, I’d say you’re actually a fast learner. Don’t prove me wrong. I rarely ever give anyone the benefit of the doubt.”
I’ve never had the urge to kick someone, let alone nut kick them, but my god, this guy’s south of the border is practically screaming, TARGET, TARGET, I’D MAKE A GREAT TARGET, I SWEAR! Then again, balls of steel and all that. It wouldn’t be very satisfying at all.
Thorn’s perfect square jaw juts out. He looks ten shades more alluring when he digs in. I get another sexy shiver. Barf. “You need this. You know you need this. You have no one else to lean on. I’ve done a full background check on you.”
Fuck. I say very few of those, but this is a full-on mental one.
I can feel my eyes filling with prickly, hot tears. It’s not even the probing and the fact that he crossed boundaries just because he could. Anyone could go there. I wouldn’t find it overly offensive, except I know he dug that information up in order to use it as a weapon in his own way.
He said he had nothing to hide. Yeah right. A guy like this doesn’t exist without major skeletons. All the skeletons, mummies, graves, dust bunnies, cobwebs, and, for sure, a vampire and probably a werewolf.
“I don’t have anything to hide either. My background is common knowledge and free.” Here’s me, holding my head up. I might be far too nice and too soft for this world, but I do have my pride.
“I know you think I’m trying to use it against you, but I’m not. I’m just stating a fact.”
Jesus. There goes his jaw, getting less jutty, and his face not so hard. His dark eyes aren’t even so glareish anymore. He’s not smiling, and he’s not soft, but his face changes just enough that it deceives a person into feeling safe.
It’s remarkable how effortless it is for him to make me feel like I’m not being attacked when he doesn’t want me to.
Ugh, there’s only so far I can fight this.
I was eaten up for days over what happened. I can’t even fathom the crumbling of my world if I lost Peach Lips. It’s true she’s the only one I have left. I know I have the world behind me. I had to make a statement about the last convention and then turn off comments and make it clear I won’t be checking social media for at least a week so I won’t be crushed and inundated by the messages, both good and bad. The good will far outweigh the bad. There are people out there if I want to reach out, but it’s hard. No one will ever get me like my mom did, and she’s gone. Sure, I do have relations and extended family I can lean on. But I don’t want to burden anyone when they have enough problems of their own. I feel that way about the world as a whole.
Peach Lips is the only one who gets to see me as me.
I would say the incident was well handled, and the police and security were amazing. I thanked everyone for their heroic actions, this unappetizing individual standing in front of me included. I stated bluntly that this wouldn’t scare me off, but after that, I realized what a challenge it sounded like. Thorn is right that the incident did set a precedent or, at the very least, it gave some people out there the wrong idea.
I’ve hardly slept for days, and that was on my bus, which is my total safety bubble. I hate listening to my anxiety. It’s not intuition, and it can’t predict the future, but I have to listen to what my body is telling me.
I need security.
And I have this sinking feeling that this prickly pickle of a dickle douchcanoe isn’t going to let it be anyone but him. He might resort to some special ops training and make someone disappear, and then that would be on me. He probably won’t kill them but do something awful enough that they get replaced or incapacitated or come down with a serious case of explosive diarrhea.
I step back onto the bus, leaving my cart with all my show stuff right there for Thorn to watch.
Peach Lips is right there, staring at me with her sweet, derpy, innocent, one hundred million percent loving face. Thinking of her not being here shatters me.
The door is open, so I know Thorn can hear me. “Fine. But we do this my way. And there has to be rules. After I set up for the show, I’ll have the rest of the day free. By the end of the evening, I’ll have a list prepared, and you can write our contract accordingly. If I’m in agreement, I might consider signing it before the show tomorrow.”