Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
And she’d been dodging the one thing she knew might get her somewhere—offering him something new. Something he couldn’t refuse. The only way to uncover the truth was to get as close to it as possible.
When he didn’t blink or say a single word, Jersey stood, nervously stroking her ponytail a few times, still in awe of how soft her hair felt since the haircut. Ian had no idea how much all the little things he did for her added up to something too big to describe.
Slipping off her jacket, she let it drop to the floor. Ian eased himself to sitting in the middle of the sofa with his broad shoulders squared to Jersey.
How close?
Ian helped himself to every inch of her without moving anything but his eyes.
How close could she get?
Jersey kicked off her shoes and locked gazes with him as she unbuttoned her jeans.
How close could she get to the truth?
Ian’s hands rested on his legs, and his gaze moved only with Jersey’s eyes as she lowered her body to peel the jeans off her legs, leaving them to rest by her jacket, along with the knife she had planted in the sock of her right leg. Not even a discarded knife made Ian as much as flinch.
The slick material of her new panties still felt foreign to her after years of wearing worn, ripped, and stained cotton. Wearing only the black satin panties and her black, fitted Ian Cooper Crew shirt, she straddled his lap. Ian eased his hands to the side, resting them on the sofa as she lowered to his lap, balancing herself by holding the back of the sofa. With a stone face and even breath, Ian lifted his hand so very slowly, reaching for the back of her head.
Jersey’s lips parted and her jaw lowered an inch as he tugged her ponytail. It radiated heavily in her breasts and between her legs. The feeling intensified when she thought of him naked.
He pinched the rubber band and eased it from her hair, allowing the long strands to fall around her shoulders and face.
She let a man fuck her with the handle of a hairbrush while he videotaped her. After six days locked in a room with a gallon of water and no food, she realized her body was nothing more than a tool. Weak and emotionally dead, she stopped fighting him. For a ham sandwich, she let him do it to her—the brush in one hand, the video camera in his other hand. Pride had no place in her life.
Survival.
Basic human needs.
Revenge.
They fed the person she had become.
Ian let his gaze drift to Jersey’s mouth. He would kiss her. She would let him.
But he didn’t move his mouth. He moved his hands.
She gasped, her whole body recoiling without actually pulling away from him as his hands palmed her ass, his fingers curling into her muscled flesh and satin panties. Her hands tightened on the back of the sofa as he lifted her, pulling her closer, and guiding her over him.
The part of him she saw in the dressing room, the part of him that showed no pleasure in her seeing him naked weeks earlier, vanished. Dragging in a ragged breath, feeling intoxicated, willingly drugged by the way he looked at her in silence, she slowly blinked.
Slowly, like the way he rubbed her against him.
Slowly, like the hypnotic dance of a serpent.
Slowly, like unearthing the truth.
Time paused as it always did when Jersey let herself fall and surrender to achieve something greater than a moment. A small trade in a much bigger game. A single line of a long story.
Again, he rocked her pelvis against his erection.
Again, the denim teased the satin.
Again, she blinked heavily.
Her tangled thoughts fought to break free, to comprehend the stolen moment.
Control slipped. She needed to take it back, but she couldn’t because the lie felt too good. It poisoned her mind and manipulated her body.
Before long, that body took over. Jersey didn’t need him to guide her. She did it all on her own. Her eyes glossed over as her jaw dropped another inch. And with a final jerk of her pelvis, she stilled, pressing hard against him. Wave after wave of pleasure surged through her. Jersey’s strong hands dug at the leather, and her head dropped to Ian’s neck. She moaned, biting and sucking his skin to keep from waking Max and Shane. It felt so intense, bordering on pain.
Jersey liked pain.
When her breath evened out and her hands unclenched from the back of the sofa, Jersey lifted her head, hair matted to her face. Ian’s hands slid from her backside, resting again on the sofa.
No words.
No emotion on his face.
Nothing.
The truth she sought remained buried in the man—a stone-cold crypt with no entrance. She would have to break in, chip away at it until it cracked, until he cracked.