Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 26471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 132(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 88(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 132(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 88(@300wpm)
“Ah, look at that,” one of them says. “The hottest one is all alone now.”
“Did you come back up to see us, darlin’?” drawls the other.
“Bobby,” I hiccup into the phone, stumbling backward, away from their sinister grins. “Bobby, call security—”
“Mandy!” he shouts in my ear, agonized, just as the phone is ripped out of my hand.
I continue to walk backward slowly, the hallway lights flickering above me, my heart running laps around my chest, praying someone will come out of their room and help me. Please, let someone help me. All I can hear is Bobby’s voice ringing in my ear and I hope it won’t be the last time I ever hear it.
“Come here, darlin’. We don’t bite.”
“No, we do a lot worse than that.”
My skin crawls as they laugh.
Behind me, the sound of an elevator opening causes hope to leap in my chest, but I don’t dare turn around and take my eyes off the two predators approaching me—
My back runs into a wall.
No, wait. Not a wall. It’s hard, but there is a layer of soft there, too. Material.
Exactly like Bobby’s fire department sweatshirt.
Cautiously, I turn around and look up into the murderous face of my fiancé.
nine
Bobby
I’ve never experienced rage this potent.
It races through my blood like quicksilver, squeezes my lungs until I’m out of breath from adrenalin. The righteous need to kill. To murder these two fuckers for leering at my future wife. For planning a lot worse. They will not live to see tomorrow—end of story.
I’m also very concerned with how Mandy is going to react to my sudden appearance, when she falsely thought I was in Boston, trusting her. Trying to change so we could be in a healthy relationship. Is she going to scream and cry and throw my ring at me? Because I don’t think I would handle that very well, especially when she just admitted to loving me. My heart couldn’t survive that shift in elevation, from the highest high to the lowest low.
“Mandy, I can explain…” Can you? “But right now, I want you safely inside the room.”
To my relief, she nods, skirting past the two dead men and unlocking the door. Holding it open and waiting for me, worrying her lip with her teeth.
“Enjoy your final hours alive,” I say for their ears alone as I walk past, letting them see all the mayhem I possess, right there in my eyes—and they flinch back, visibly unnerved. “You’ve made a fatal mistake.”
“We were just talking to her.”
I don’t bother responding, just continue to walk toward Mandy, joining her at the open hotel room door and nudging her inside. I wrap an arm around her waist to keep her from running away while I deadbolt the door and watch through the peephole as the dead men scurry back into their room and lock themselves inside, as if a locked door could stop me. With the imminent threat removed, I face Mandy, positive she’s going to try and break up with me again. Operative word: try.
“Mandy, I’m sorry, but I’ll never be capable of letting you travel without me. You’re too precious to me. I come with you and protect you, wherever you go, baby. That’s what I do.”
“Was that you?” she whispers, her eyes flickering over my dark navy hoodie. “Downstairs in the club? Did you beat up those guys who t-tried to…”
Drug her.
I think of their lifeless bodies where I left them in a service entrance.
Covered in blood. Not a pulse between them.
“Yeah, I beat them up.”
“Oh,” she breathes.
God, I just want to hold her. “Look, I know you’re pissed—”
“No. I’m not.” Her breaths are coming faster as she closes the distance between us, settling her palms on my chest. “I realized tonight that…”
“What?”
She ducks her head, looking up at me from beneath her eyelashes. “I don’t want to resist what we have anymore.” I’ve wanted to hear those words so badly, I worry I might have misheard her. Maybe I wanted her to make this admission so much, I’m imagining it. But no, she’s unbuttoning my jeans, taking down my zipper and reaching inside to stroke me through my briefs. Definitely not trying to break up with me, thank God. “I still want to go to school and learn. I want to have a job someday, but…I also want to be absorbed by you, Bobby, whether it’s wrong or right. I want you to overwhelm me. I want to get lost in you.” She goes down on her knees, takes out my cock and kisses the head. Licks it daintily. “I want you to lose yourself in me, too.”
Relief and happiness and strength surge through me.
“Ahhh, Jesus, Mandy. I already have been,” I rasp, gripping a fistful of her hair, relief and lust and affection causing me to sway on my feet. “Who I was before? I drowned them, killed them off the second I saw you. I’m this man now.” I wrap her hair around my fist. “I’m your personal psychopath.”