Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 108165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
My fingernails scrape along the table. Again, I close my eyes and think of Jack. It’s his mouth on my breast. It’s him standing before me, stroking his cock.
Archer grabs my hand and shows me how he likes to be jerked off. When I draw my fist up his erection, he kisses me so hard I grunt into his mouth. His hand returns to my breast, squeezing it, pinching my nipple until I wince.
“Fucking don’t stop.” He breaks the kiss long enough to growl at me when my hand pauses.
I can no longer think of Jack. This is too wrong. The only thing that keeps me going is the words in Molly’s letter to Steven. I kiss Archer back.
For revenge.
I pump his erection, eliciting approving moans from him. I think of how his daughter manipulated Steven in the most sadistic way. She walked him to the edge of a cliff and gave him a shove. She controlled him, and then she killed him.
And I’m going to control her family … and then I’m going to destroy it.
Archer pistons his hips. He devours my breasts. His other hand grabs my crotch over my jeans.
This is gross and perverse.
It’s wrong in every way.
Iris wants him. She likes the way he touches her—the pads of his fingers massaging all around her clit.
His mouth sucking her nipples.
Iris can do this. She’ll do it even if I can’t. She, not I, is okay with feeding Archer Sanford’s prurient curiosity—his lascivious obsession.
She allows the sinful pleasure to penetrate her conscience, obliterating it when the heel of Archer’s hand circles and grinds over her clit. Iris orgasms, fighting the tears from the instant onslaught of shame.
“Fuck … fuck … fuck!” Archer smacks the table beside me when he comes all over himself and on my hand.
His outburst shakes my confidence just long enough for him to shove his tongue down my throat and moan while guiding my hand to my breast, smearing his jizz all over it, marking me because he’s an animal. Then he grabs his cock and rubs the head of it between my legs, dropping his chin to watch like it’s the most mesmerizing thing he’s seen—his cum soiling my jeans. “Goddamn … I need to fuck you, Iris.” He rests his forehead on mine, softly panting.
I close my eyes and hold deathly still. I don’t want to see what he’s doing. I don’t want any of this to be real.
I don’t want Steven to be dead … but he is.
This is not as bad as death. It’s remarkable how everything in my life has boiled down to the simplistic comparison to death.
“Let’s eat,” he whispers in my ear before tucking himself back into his pants and cleaning the wet spots on his shirt with a napkin.
I reach for my napkin, but he snatches it and shakes his head while smirking. “I want you to feel and smell me on you all night.”
Any uncontrolled and unwanted physical attraction I (Iris) had toward him vanishes. I tuck in the front of my shirt and grab a slice of pizza with my clean hand; then I find a smile that’s just sweet enough to feed his ego, even if I’m dead inside.
After Archer finishes the bottle of wine all by himself, I stomach a whole slice of pizza before he walks me to my car. He surveys our surroundings before kissing my cheek and sliding his hand up my shirt like he can fondle me at will. And maybe he can since I’m not stopping him … yet.
“Good night.”
I feel gross, but gross is better than dead (that fucking awful comparison), so I plaster on a smile instead of a verbal pleasantry. With as much self-control as I can muster, I pull out of the parking lot. As soon as I know he no longer sees my taillights, I push the accelerator to the floor. The road blurs behind my tears. It’s hard to put things into perspective. I’m angry and heartbroken. Embarrassed. I’m grasping for something that I hope will feel like justice. But I don’t know how long I can hold on. So I recite every word of Molly’s letter, which feeds me. It strengthens my resolve again. I can do this.
By some miracle, I make it to Eloise’s in one piece—physically.
Emotionally, I’m scattered along the road between Rhodale and Boone, Kansas.
“How was your night?” Eloise asks with her usual bedtime concoction mug of warm milk, honey, and turmeric cupped in both hands.
With my head bowed, I mess with my hair so she doesn’t see my face while I beeline for the stairs.
“Did you have dinner alone? I would have joined you.”
“I uh … had dinner with a friend of Lynn’s. Good night.” I hide in a hot shower, giving my body a head-to-toe surgical scrub, including my tongue, which makes my stomach tighten and lurch on the edge of vomiting.