Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 36564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 183(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 183(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
The girl on the stage gasped, slapping both hands over her mouth in shock. She looked from me to him and back before turning and fleeing the stage.
“Fuck.” I hadn’t meant to scare the girl and, for some fucking reason, it made my chest ache worse than my anger at imagined reasons for her being in this contest in the first Goddamned place.
All around me, men were still cheering, either not noticing the interaction between two of the judges or not caring. Keeping my eye on the fleeing girl so I could see exactly which way she went, I made note of the contestant number on her hip. I’d find out her name before I left this place, then I’d give that shit to Crush or Byte and they’d find her for me if needed. Oh, they’d moan and groan and tell me they needed more, after a bunch of grumbling and even more pizza, chips, dip, chicken wings, and anything else they could get Evelyn and Gina to make them. Which meant, I’d be bribing the women to make everything all in one go so I got my information faster.
Making my way through the crowd of horny men in their twenties, I headed in the direction I’d watched her leave. Still, no one said anything about the guy I’d just dropped. Were these fuckers for real?
Wait. Of course they were for real. I’d just answered that question when I’d made the judgment they were horny men in their twenties. Every ounce of blood flow that should have gone to their brains had likely gone straight to their dicks. Given the link between sex and violence, those guys wouldn’t notice anything short of a bomb blast.
I hurried around the stage and saw her. Leaning against a concrete wall next to the women’s bathroom. She had her hand over her stomach, and then she leaned forward and vomited.
“Sweet God above.” Another woman emerged from the bathroom in a skimpy bikini like everyone else had on. She gave my girl a disgusted look, her tone of voice irritated in the extreme. “Girl, you’ve got to get a hold of yourself.” She snickered. “If I curled up in a pile of puke every time someone grabbed me on stage, I’d never get through even one contest.” She scrunched up her nose. “Not like you were ever going to win anyway.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder, then twisted her ass toward the back of the stage. My girl sobbed as she finished vomiting.
I froze where I was as she fell back on her ass. She was half naked -- her bathing suit didn’t cover much -- huddling on the ground in a protective ball as she cried.
“Girl? He hurt you?” I knew he hadn’t, but I had no idea what her mindset was.
She shook her head but didn’t say anything.
“Girl? Need a verbal answer.” I stepped closer to her, careful not to spook her. I wasn’t sure how long I had before someone realized Mr. Handsy at the judges’ table was unconscious, or worse, and came looking for me.
“No.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stood to her feet. “I just wasn’t expecting anyone to touch me.”
“He shouldn’t have.”
She looked up at me with large, hazel eyes. “You hurt him.” She kept her voice low and her gaze shifted like she was looking for someone. “You should hurry and go. I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
“You don’t… want… Girl, have you lost your mind?”
She gave me a confused look then shook her head. “Please just go. I can’t lie for shit and if someone sees us together, they’ll think I’m lying, no matter what, if I say I don’t know you.”
“What exactly are you afraid of here, girl?”
“That you’ll get arrested? That I’ll have to give a statement since I saw you shove his face into the stage and I can’t lie and say I didn’t see anything and I don’t want to help get you arrested when all you were doing was being nice!” She said it all in one breath.
I had to stop myself from grinning. “Those are a lot of fears.”
“See? I’m a hot mess.” Tears gathered in her eyes but she swallowed a couple of times and forced them back. Brave little thing.
“You’re not a hot mess.” I tried to be as gentle as I could. It was easy to see this girl was fragile. “You’re just in an unfamiliar situation.” Before I realized what I was doing, I reached out to brush a strand of hair away from her forehead. It was stuck in her eyelashes and I knew it had to be uncomfortable. She sucked in a breath, her lips parting.
Fuck.
Fuck!
What the fuck was I doing? Touching her? Why was every cell in my body suddenly focused on this girl? The last thing I wanted to do was get a fucking hard-on right now, but I was rapidly headed that way. “Sorry, sweetheart. I shouldn’t have touched you.”