Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68509 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68509 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Then, throwing his pack through, he climbed into the claustrophobic hole and started to move through.
My stomach twisted, my palms sweated, and I felt dizzy with how hard my pulse was pounding in my ears.
“Violet, now,” Wick yelled from the hole.
He was right.
The shooting had stopped.
Footsteps were approaching.
It was the only choice.
With a whimper, I pushed my pack through, then climbed in, the cave gritty on my hands and legs as the hole narrowed and I had to wiggle on my belly instead of crawl.
My chest was tight.
Even gasping for breath, I couldn’t breathe.
Then a hand closed around my foot and pulled.
A scream I couldn’t have known I was capable of escaped me.
“Vi!” Wick reached into the hole from wherever he was, grabbing my wrists, and dragging me with every bit of strength in his body.
My body rushed forward.
And behind my feet, rocks crumbled, falling on my back as I was pulled through.
“Shit,” Wick hissed as more, larger rocks started to fall.
And more.
I was half-crushed by them as Wick desperately tried to pull me into the alcove he’d found.
“No,” I gasped as, once I was pulled free, more and more rocks fell.
The cave itself rumbled as the cave-in continued.
Little by little, the rush of the waterfall silenced. The light disappeared.
“No,” I cried, breaking free from Wick and trying to pull the rocks out of the hole.
“Duchess, no,” Wick said, grabbing me around the waist and pulling me back. “You could make it worse.”
“Worse? Worse than this? We’re trapped!”
“Yes, worse. We could be crushed. And die slowly from injuries.”
“Might be better than dying of dehydration or, like, lack of oxygen. Oh, God. I can’t breathe.”
“Hey, okay, look at me,” Wick demanded, framing my face, forcing my face up. “Breathe with me.”
He sucked in a deep breath, and I tried to do the same. Failed. Then tried again.
Little by little, the tightness in my chest eased, and the fuzziness in my brain moved away.
“I don’t want to die in here,” I said, my voice quavering.
“We’re not giving up,” Wick said, pressing his forehead to mine. “But for a little while, we are going to pretend to.”
“Why?” I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to focus on the feel of Wick instead of my own panic.
“So they think we’re dead and move on.”
“But we’ll run out of air.”
“Violet, focus,” Wick demanded, reaching down for my hand, then raising it up in the air. “Feel that?”
I didn’t at first, too focused on my inner world than the exterior one.
But suddenly, I did feel it.
A small gust of wind.
“We won’t suffocate in here,” he said. “We have water and food. And slowly but surely, I will get us out of here. Either from where that wind is coming from, or pulling the rocks out of that hole. We are not going to die here.”
“I want to believe that,” I said.
“You don’t need to believe me. I’ll show you. But for right now, let’s sit, breathe, try to focus.”
This little alcove was even smaller than the cave we’d slept in the night before.
When we moved to sit, Wick couldn’t stretch his legs all the way out.
He pulled me up at his side, then over his lap.
His fingers slid through my still-wet hair, sometimes stopping to rub my scalp.
Slowly but surely, the touch had some of my anxiety slipping away.
It was a disorienting kind of dark in our alcove, so that even as my eyes adjusted, I could barely make out Wick. Or anything else for that matter.
That low vision seemed to make time slow. And with nothing to do but sit there and overthink, I seemed to think myself to sleep.
But my rest was fraught with equally terrifying nightmares—falling into sinkholes, sinking into quicksand, being mauled by a jaguar—and I shocked awake still in Wick’s arms.
“You’re okay. I got you,” Wick said, arms squeezing me.
We did have that.
Each other.
Even if we were trapped in a cave.
Likely where we would die.
From a cave-in.
From dehydration.
From some weird virus from our careless waterfall bathing.
“Vi?” Wick asked as I suddenly moved my legs off of him, body wiggling as I struggled out of my shorts and panties.
I slid back over him, reaching down between us to work his button and zipper down.
By the time I reached inside, he was already getting hard for me, almost as wet as I was for him.
Wick’s hand moved outward, feeling around in the dark until his fingers moved between my thighs.
“You’re so wet for me already,” he murmured, his lips going to my neck, making shivers course through me.
His fingers slid inside me as mine stroked his cock. Both of us were unhurried, enjoying the teasing, the build-up.
“There you go,” Wick said, breath rushing over my skin, sending goosebumps prickling in its wake as his palm pressed against my cleft, engaging my clit as the orgasm started, then rolled through me, leaving me moaning against his shoulder as my whole body shuddered.