Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
He called my writing brilliant. Said I could do literary fiction. Dark literary fiction that would make critics uncomfortable.
I want to believe him.
God, I want to believe him so badly it hurts.
And his face. Jesus Christ, his face.
I wasn't expecting that either. I thought the mask was hiding something. Scars maybe. Or average features. Something that would make the mystery make sense.
But he's just... handsome. Actually handsome. Sharp jawline, intense eyes, the kind of bone structure that makes you want to keep looking.
It makes me want to please him more. Makes me want to earn his approval. Makes the ache between my thighs even worse because now I can picture his face while I imagine all the things he might do to me.
Pathetic. I'm so fucking pathetic.
But I don't care.
I step fully onto the platform and realize how narrow it is. Just a ring of wood surrounding the massive tree trunk. Barely wide enough for one person to stand on, definitely not wide enough for two.
I turn around to ask him what I'm supposed to do now… and find him walking back across the plank. Away from me. Heading toward the opposite tree where the rope ladder waits.
"Wait—where are you going?"
He glances back over his shoulder with this devastating smile. The kind that promises trouble. "This isn't a pre-school, my good little slut. It's a master class. You don't get your hand held twice. You want my cock, little whore? You gotta earn it."
His words land like a slap.
"You've already taken more from me than you've earned. You're in debt, my horny little trollop. So my last bit of advice to you—" He reaches down between his legs and grabs himself. "—if you want this big, hard cock inside your dripping wet pussy—is to exceed my expectations. Otherwise…" he shrugs. "I'll edge you forever. Deny you forever. Leave you alone… forever."
Before I can pick my fucking jaw back up off the ground, he reaches up into the canopy and pulls something. A handle. Hidden in the leaves.
Then he jumps.
"What the—"
He disappears on a zip line that materializes from nowhere, his body swinging down through the trees with perfect control.
Gone.
Just... gone.
I stare at the empty space where he was standing three seconds ago.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" I yell into the jungle.
No answer.
Of course no answer.
And that threat? What the fuck? Did we not just have a moment? Because to me, it felt like a moment. He kissed me, talked sweet to me, helped me.
And he abandoned you, Scarletta. Just like all the rest.
I press my back against the tree trunk and try to breathe. What is happening.
It's a challenge, obviously. I didn't fail the first one, the punishment—which was good, and hard, and still stings but in the most delicious way—was a set up from the preparation room.
I was meant to fail.
But this is different.
He doesn't want me to fail this challenge because if he did, he would've left me up here before walking the plank, not after helping me across.
Which means…
Still pressing my back against the tree, I lean over a little, trying to see the other side of the tree.
Sure enough, there's a platform. And nailed to the platform is an envelope.
Challenge two.
I need to move. It's literally like eighteen inches to the other side of the tree, but it's a really long way down. I look. I can't help it. I think I see a net. In fact, I'm pretty sure I do see a net, which makes sense because this place seems to be set up like a corporate retreat challenge exercise. If those came with naked women and gyno-tubs.
This is a professional set up. A real place that does business. Probably not corporate team-building, but something for billionaires. Like the auction.
Fake enough to keep you from dying, real enough to scare the fuck out of you.
The point of the hunt—which doesn't quite fit so far. He's not hunting me, so I don't get it. But anyway, the point of this is to trust him. He made that perfectly clear. He got me across the plank. Now I need to step up and show him that I do trust him. That every single thing he asks me to do here is safe.
Because he set it up, because he's watching.
It's a good story. Slightly twisted. Maybe too twisted for my readers. They like a good subplot, but only if it's attached to spice.
And this subplot certainly is.
God, the way he licked me.
Last time I missed most of that. I get that it happened—intellectually, I know his mouth was on me, his tongue working me over—but I don't remember feeling it. Not really. The whole experience exists in fragments, disjointed snapshots that don't quite connect into a coherent memory.
This time, though… this time I definitely felt it. Every single second of it.