Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
That was how it was going to be? Fine. I would just leave. I stood up and felt slightly off-balance for a moment and reached to grab something to steady me when two large hands wrapped around my waist.
“Easy,” King said close to my ear.
I shivered and turned my head just barely to peer up at him.
His jaw was clenched again, like he was mad. Second time today that I’d seen angry King. Nothing like the King I’d grown accustomed to. The King I liked. As a friend, of course. I was married, or I was a widow—I wasn’t sure exactly.
“I’ll take you home,” King said, then wrapped an arm around my waist and started to lead me away from the others.
“Wait,” I said, trying to turn back around but he stopped me. With a frustrated sigh, I glared at him. “I need to tell Sebastian bye and thank him for tonight.”
“He heard you. He’s been thanked. Let’s go,” King replied, the tic in his jaw unmistakable. Even if I was slightly tipsy.
“This is rude,” I told him.
“He understands,” King said, pushing me to move forward.
I tried to jerk free and stalk away from him, but I stumbled, and then I was no longer on my feet, but in the air. Or rather in King’s arms. He was carrying me. I looked up at him and wished his face weren’t so nice and his arms weren’t so muscly and his abs weren’t so ripped.
The corner of his lips twitched. “Ripped, huh?” he asked, glancing down at me.
I covered my mouth with my hand. “I said that out loud?”
He smirked. “Yep. The muscly arms and nice face too.”
Crap. I closed my eyes and already knew I was going to be really humiliated in the morning. Right now, he smelled too good. Like cedar trees, freshly cut, and cinnamon. It was a sexy scent, and I wanted to bury my face in his neck and inhale.
“What was that about cinnamon?” he asked, and I gasped, covering my mouth again.
The cool night air hit me in the face, and I realized we were outside already. How had we done that so fast? Where was the underground garage?
“I don’t park my truck down there. It’s out here.”
Clearly, I could not keep my mouth from speaking my thoughts.
“I can walk,” I told him.
“No, you can’t. You already made that clear.”
I slapped at his chest. “You’re mean. I thought you were nice, and you are not nice, King. You are mean. You do mean things.”
He stopped and dropped his gaze to mine. “I’m not mean. I’m angry right now at Sebastian for getting you drunk.”
I shook my head. “You…you…you like to hit women.”
His eyes didn’t leave mine. “No, I don’t. I spank them, but only the ones who want me to. I tie them up because they want it and ask for it. I’m not mean.”
I swallowed hard as his blue eyes seemed to glow under the moonlight. “Why do you want to spank them?”
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “Because I like it when they give me control. When they submit to me. When they trust me to give them pleasure and want me to take them to the brink of pain. Pleasurable pain.”
I felt hot. All over. I needed to take off my hoodie and stick my head in a freezer maybe.
“I would never hurt a woman, Rumor. I only fuck women who want the same thing I do.”
I stared at him, unable to say anything more. I believed him. I’d seen the blonde today. She had clearly wanted him. Even though she’d been screaming.
He started walking again, and then he opened the truck door and set me inside of it. I laid my head back on the seat, and he reached in to buckle me. I didn’t bother telling him I could do it because I wasn’t so sure I could. Maybe I had drunk a little too much.
When he closed the door, my eyes followed him as he walked around the front of the truck. The seat was warm, and it smelled like him. My eyes felt heavy, and I closed them, letting the comfort seep in as I drifted away.
• twenty-two •
“He was just kinky.”
Rumor
Before I opened my eyes, I realized my mouth felt as if I had swallowed cotton balls. I tried to create saliva and felt the slight ache in my head. As I squinted against the sunlight pouring into the room, last night came back to me all in one big rush.
I’d gone to Sebastian’s, eaten Mexican food, drunk margaritas, watched a movie, then King…had come and gotten me. Carried me to his truck. Told me…he spanked women who wanted it. Women who submitted to him for pleasure.
I sucked in air through my teeth and sat up. The last thing I remembered was getting inside his truck. Studying my clothing, I found that I was in the tank top and bra I’d had on underneath my hoodie, but my shorts were gone. I was in my panties.