Page 20 of Relapse
I sat up and palmed my aching cock while considering how far I wanted this to go. I was going to fuck her, there was no doubt about that. But why rush things? When I took her pussy, I didn’t want her scared. I wanted her fucking terrified.
My hand shot out, wrapping around her neck and squeezing until she gasped and her eyes snapped open. When those wide brown orbs met mine, I couldn’t help but smirk at the shock glittering inside them.
“Rise and shine, Freckles.”
Payback’s a bitch.
One minuteI was lost in Wonderland, having tea with Alice. Then the next, I couldn’t breath. A giant black snake had wrapped around my throat. I didn’t know where it came from, or how it got there, but there it was. Making me struggle and lash out. My lungs burned as I desperately tried to gasp in oxygen and fought against the constriction getting tighter and tighter.
Breathe Harper, breathe.
When my eyes fluttered open I realized it wasn’t a snake. It was something else so much worse than any nightmare monster I could imagine. A pair of sparkling green eyes punched me in the gut.
“Rise and shine, Freckles.”
My heart stopped dead in my chest as dread set in, rolling through my body in a wave that froze my muscles. All I could do was blink and struggle for breath. This couldn’t be real. I had to still be dreaming. Mason Kessler was not in my room.
Those green eyes narrowed as Mason’s fingers tightened around my wildly flickering pulse, but it was his voice that smacked me in the face.
“There you are.”
Oh my God, Mason Kessler was in my room!
Shock had rendered me useless. I couldn’t even move when he pulled his hand off my neck and sat back. I just laid there coughing much needed oxygen back into my lungs.
What was he doing here? The answer to that question terrified me even more than the devious smirk on his lips.
Mason didn’t say a thing. He didn’t apologize for almost strangling me to death, or ask if I was okay. He simply sat there watching me choke on air.
“Stop being so dramatic.” An annoyed look washed over his face. “I didn’t choke you that hard.”
I don’t know what came over me, or why I said anything at all. But the instant the words, “You almost killed me,” left my mouth, I regretted them.
Darkness flooded into Mason’s glare, making me scuttle back against my headboard and hug my knees. “I’m sorry.”
I knew better than to talk back. Nothing good ever came out of being the brave one. It was the timid mouse hiding in the corner that survived the cat. Though right now, Mason looked more like a lion ready to pounce. A mouse had no chance against a lion.
Awkward silence filled the room as I stayed still, afraid to provoke the boy on my bed. No, not boy. My eyes rolled over his broad shoulders and bulging muscles. Mason wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a man.
A man with arms bigger than my thighs. I couldn’t stop staring at him. Watching the way the twinkling blue and purple lights danced across his olive skin, or how the moonlight highlighted his chocolate hair.
Other girls would be delighted to find a guy like him in their room. Not me. I knew the pain and humiliation that came with that charming smile. I’d felt the wrath of his sharp tongue. The only thing Mason Kessler wanted to do with me was destroy me. I suppose I deserved it.
My eyes drifted to the picture of the smiling little boy on my bedside table.
I destroyed him first. That didn’t mean I wasn’t scared. I was terrified, because he was in my room. He never came here. Not anymore.
Anxiety had me wound up so tight that when Mason did finally speak, I jumped.
“Nice job trying to hide the evidence by the way,” he nodded at my stomach. “But you don’t think I’m that dumb, do you?”
My brows knit when I glanced down. I didn’t have to pull my shirt up to know what he was talking about, because my legs were tucked up against me. I couldn’t see the bruise on my left thigh.
It should be right there, just below the hemline of my shorts. But all I could see was unmarked skin. I could still feel it every time my muscle twitched, which confused me even more.
Where did it go?
I was tempted to inspect the rest of my injuries, and I might’ve, if Mason wasn’t watching me like a hawk. I couldn’t risk raising his suspicions. Then he might think I was hiding more than the bruises he’d seen and my lame excuse of falling wouldn’t have a chance of working.
