Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
Nineteen-year-old Peyton Turner has a stalker. No, she doesn’t have a proof but she can feel him watching her every move. She can feel his intense stares through her bedroom window, and she can smell his intoxicating scent when he’s close. But every time she tries to catch him, he seems to disappear into the shadows. The only thing she knows for sure is that he wears a mask. A mask that hides a wicked scar running down his face but accentuates his startling green eyes.
She shouldn’t revel in his dangerous attention, but she can’t help herself. There’s something about him that calls to her. Until her best friend and the only person she’s ever been able to count on in her life, goes missing. Peyton has a feeling her masked stalker has something to do with it. After all, his sudden presence in her life can’t be a coincidence. But instead of staying away from him, she has a set a trap, draw him out of hiding and somehow bring her best friend home
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PROLOGUE
Present
I KNOW HE’S here even though I can’t see him.
I also know he’s watching me because he always does. I wonder if he knows I’m wearing this dress for him. It’s white in color, but that’s the only thing innocent about it. It clings to me like a second skin, hits me a couple of inches above mid-thigh—so, basically, barely covers my ass—and its spaghetti straps are so thin, so fragile, that they’re practically a taunt.
For him.
To tear them off with one twist of his strong hands. With one snap of his sharp teeth, even. I imagine him standing in a darkened corner of this bar we’re in, flexing his fingers, clenching his teeth with the need to touch me as he watches me sip on the cosmo I got with my fake ID that shows I’m twenty-two instead of nineteen.
Good.
It means my plan is working. Or at least it’s off to a good start. Now on to the second part. Sitting at the bar, I eye the space, trying to choose my mark. It’s going to be between the guy in a white T-shirt at the other end of the bar, or the one in a Western-style denim shirt two tables behind me. They’re both drunk, obnoxiously so. They both look like they don’t take rejection well and think if a girl flirts with them, it’s her duty to put out. Not to mention, they both have on cowboy hats. Which isn’t that uncommon since we’re in the Wild West but which, in my experience, only bodes bad things. In short, they are both asshole cowboys that no decent girl should ever get involved with.
Perfect.
When I see the denim-shirt guy breaking away from his group of friends and making a beeline for the bar, my decision is made. I gulp down my cosmo in one go, feeling the burn of the liquor from my tongue all the way down to my chest, and spring up from the barstool. The moment I do, I feel a prickle at the nape of my neck. Not that it wasn’t there before—it followed me all the way through my apartment to this bar—but in this moment, as I make my way to the guy I’m about to pick up, that prickle has become heated, agitated. I ignore it, though, and put myself in the denim-shirt guy’s path, deliberately crashing into him. Pasting a demure smile on my lips, I look up at his face, lined with irritation. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bump into you.”
At my words, his irritation melts away and he flicks his drunken gaze up and down my body. “No worries, sweetheart,” he says, his voice carrying that cowboy-ish drawl, lazy and arrogant and totally disgusting in my opinion. “Ain’t every day I get bumped into by a girl as pretty as you.”
I want to smile in triumph; this is going to be easier than I thought. But I refrain and keep up the innocent act. Guys like him—and by that I mean bullheaded cowboys—like their girls sweet. They like them submissive and feminine, someone they can control and mold. While I can be feminine, I’m not anyone’s submissive. I love putting on pretty pink heels, but I’ll just as easily grind them into your balls if you mess with me.
“Well, I should really learn to watch where I’m going, though,” I say, batting my eyelashes a little bit.
His lips tip up into a smirk as he runs his eyes up and down my body again. This time, he pauses at my chest for a few seconds. Which isn’t all that generous—only 33B—but the built-in bra in this dress does give good cleavage. One of the many reasons why I chose to wear it for my mission tonight. Once he’s done checking me out, he looks up and licks his lips. “Well then, maybe I can teach you that. Don’t want you bumpin’ into the wrong sort of man.”