Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“I don’t want to move past this. I want you rotting in a shallow grave somewhere.”
A few days ago, that would have come out a lot more convincingly.
“No, I don’t think you do. See, the funny thing about killing is, it’s a lot easier in your head. Before you actually see someone as a person. It’s not easy when you’re face to face with someone and really see the weight of what you are about to do.”
“You would know,” I said, turning away.
“I would know,” he agreed, tone low, serious.
“So, you’re admitting it?” I asked, whipping back around.
“I don’t think I’m admitting to what you think I’m admitting to, no. But I’ve done some shit. I wouldn’t say I’m proud of it. But this isn’t a normal lifestyle. It comes with risks. And sometimes you need to defend yourself.”
“Please,” I scoffed. “It’s not self-defense. It’s cold-blooded murder. At least I have the balls to admit that was what I was going to do.”
“Look, I don’t know what we’re dancing around here. But it’s making me dizzy. So why don’t you just spit it out?”
“No,” I said, my jaw starting to tremble enough that I had to clench my teeth together to stop it.
I wasn’t sure I could have this conversation, could listen to him lie to my face and deny what he’d done. Or make excuses for it. Not without my darting toward the knife block and stabbing him sixty times in the chest. And then what a nightmare of a mess I’d have to deal with afterward. If he didn’t end up killing me first.
“No?”
“No. Now get out so I can finish this stupid job.”
Rune paused, glancing out the back window for a second before looking back at me. The impact of his gaze nearly sent me back a step.
“What is it about me that makes you think this is something I am going to let drop?”
“I guess the part where I’m not chained up in a basement being tortured.”
“Is that what you want?” he asked, moving closer. I knew his movements were almost predatory, but there was something about the way he was stalking me that fired up some urge not just to run, but to be chased, caught.
“To be tortured? No, not really. I don’t handle pain well.”
“I think it is what you want,” he said, close enough for our toes to touch. He was towering over me, his head ducked down, his eye contact so intense that I felt helpless but to look down, to stare at the chain on his neck instead. “I think you want me to grab you, handcuff you, take you back with me, and shove you in the basement and put my hands on you. Because then it would confirm all the ideas you have up in your head about what kind of man I am.”
Logically, I knew what he was implying.
Hormonally, the handcuffs were voluntary and his hands weren’t on me to do harm.
The wave of want that rolled through me was disgusting, wrong, yet completely unstoppable.
Even as my brain tried to remind me what this man had done, how he had ruined so many good things, all my body could do was react to his nearness.
My heartbeat thrummed, my breath quickened, my nerves fired, a heavy pressure gathered in my lower stomach, and an ache started between my thighs.
I was suddenly all too aware of him: his nearness, his body heat, his breath, the spicy, warm scent of his cologne.
“I’m sorry to break it to you, Carmen, but I’m not the bad guy you’ve convinced yourself I am. You’re right, I do want answers. But I wouldn’t hurt you to get them.”
Before I could even wrap my head around the conflicting thoughts and body sensations, he was gone, stalking out through the house and slamming the front door.
But it wasn’t done.
I knew it in my bones.
This wasn’t the last time I would be seeing Rune.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rune
“Yo,” someone called as my sneakers pounded the pavement.
The sun was unyielding, the humidity set to tropical rainforest. Sweat poured down my body, and my legs were getting wobbly.
I had no idea how long I’d been running, but judging by how my body was starting to feel, it was longer than was probably healthy in the kind of heat that was burning up Jersey on that particular day.
The long drive home from Carmen’s neck of the woods had done nothing to clear my head. So instead of driving home, I’d driven right to the beach, taking time to grab basketball shorts and sneakers out of the saddlebags, changing, then taking off down the pathway along the beach.
I slowed, squinting against the sun to see who was hollering. Only to find my brother standing there.
“What the fuck are you running from?” he asked, making his way toward me. When he was close enough, a bottle flew through the air, making me reach up to snatch it before it whacked me in the face.