Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“I warned you,” he says, his tone almost amused. “I told you to be careful and the first thing you did was get yourself right into trouble. I can’t believe you sometimes, Callie. You’re so smart, and you really don’t like being spanked like this, but every chance you get, you provoke one.”
“Oh, fuck off. You don’t know me like that,” I curse at him, my temper flaring with each and every harsh slap landing on my ass. The tracksuit fabric helps a little, but I can still feel the heat building almost instantly, and the odd sort of numb buzz that comes from being whipped too damn hard.
“I do know you, Callie. I have spent months doing nothing but getting to know you. You think because I met you a couple of times I don’t know you. But, little girl, you are my special interest. You are my favorite subject. I know more about you than I know about anyone or anything.”
It would be a sweet, intimate declaration if he wasn’t thrashing my ass. He spanks me with slow, measured slaps that land heavily every time.
“I’m dangerous! I’m scary! I killed someone.”
He reaches to yank down my pants and panties, clutches my hair, and rumbles a response in my ear.
“Baby girl, let me know when you’ve killed a dozen. One person in defense of yourself and others is not the makings of a monster. Now settle down and be sorry.”
I laugh as his palm lands, cutting my amusement off as it starts to create a painful sting. He’s not kidding. He’s spanking me hard and fast, driving out all notion of my terribleness until I am soft, pliable, and in the strangest way given the events of this horrible day, happy.
His fingers slide over my cheeks and down between my legs and he finds the little bud of desire hidden at the apex of my lips. I let out a soft moan as he starts to play with me there, circling and strumming until I am writhing and then bucking over his lap. I cannot think about the terrible things. All I can think about is pleasure, how much he gives me, and how he found me.
But he didn’t save me. I saved myself. And even as I buck against his fingers, the fact that I have become something other than what I used to be is still somewhere deep in the back of my mind, circling like an impatient beast dismissed from the fire and relegated to the shadows.
When I have finished shivering in his arms, he picks me up and makes things clear.
“You’re coming with me. The strays can stay here. But you… you are not leaving my sight again.”
Funny thing about orgasms. They make it really, really hard to argue. My brain is barely operational right now. The fact that I’m being sexually coerced by my stalker who has done nothing but leave me to the mercy of the worst of wolf kind does ring alarm bells, but they’re very distant alarm bells. Sort of more like wind chimes, at this point. That’s the fun thing about doing very dumb things. It’s not that you don’t know the thing you are doing is dumb, but it’s more fun in the immediate moment than it is stupid.
The point is, I haven’t forgotten that this man is a stalker and maybe a murderer and he was sent to disrupt my life and my research. He might be my lover, in some ways, but he’s not my friend. He’s not my boyfriend. He’s not even, technically speaking, an acquaintance. He’s a walking shadow with a plethora of identities, many of which are likely still very unknown to me.
I let him take me. Maybe it’s because I’m curious. Maybe it’s because I want to come again. Maybe it’s both.
Once he has my compliance, he starts making calls. In about twenty minutes, a big black SUV of the kind only owned by people who are up to bad things rolls up my drive.
“We’re going to New Orleans?” I ask Gray the question. “Is that where you’re from?”
“It is where my pack is from. But I wasn’t born here. I was born in England. I moved here when my father gained custody from my mother. He is from here, but he left pups all over the world. I was just one of his bastards. Karl is another.”
A tall man gets out of the driver’s side. I recognize him from Gray’s apartment. It’s his brother. Or half-brother. They don’t look enough like one another to be full brothers, I think.
“Karl is another what?”
“Bastard,” Gray says. “Karl, this is Callie. My mate.”
Karl looks like he wants to laugh in our faces when Gray calls me his mate.
“I love your work, darling,” Karl says. “Brutal, messy, dramatic. You’re too good for him, you know. You could do so much better.”