Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159420 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 531(@300wpm)
I don’t know what I was going to say, but I don’t get a chance to figure it out because it all happens at once. I realize my fingers had reached the edge of his hard jaw, the left side, and I was about to touch his scar. But before I could do that, he strikes. He grabs my wrists, both of them, taking my hands off his neck, his body, even. He twists my arms behind my back, holding them captive with his. And he does it so hard—harder than the rope he bound me with this morning—that I gasp. Both from the pain and the way my small body crashes into his hard one.
Staring down at me, his eyes the only bright thing on his shadowed face, he growls, “This what you wanted? My hands on you.”
“I—”
He tightens his grip around my wrists and instead of a gasp, a hiss escapes me, my face contorting with distress. He even pushes his chest into my heaving one, almost flattening my breasts, making me bite my lip. He studies the obvious signs of pain on my face with somehow both a cold and a mean look in his eyes as he rumbles, “You’re right. I did enjoy the show. It’s not every day that a pretty princess takes her clothes off for a man like me. Not every day that she plays with her tight little body, moanin’ and gaspin’, writhin’ on her bed like it’s a stage. Set for my pleasure. And you’re right about the other thing too. My hands are too big for you, my fingers too thick and scarred. It’d be a struggle to make them fit. I’d try, though. You can bet on that. I’d try really fuckin’ hard to work my fingers into that hot body. Can’t think of a single man in this shitty world who could resist doin’ that, so how could I? I’m not even a man. I’m a monster. So you should know when a monster puts his hands on a princess, he don’t just stretch her out; he tears her apart. He makes her bleed on his big filthy hands and the princess doesn’t just moan; she screams the fuckin’ roof down. So you wanna play with me, Princess, you better be ready to pay the price. Or learn to run really fuckin’ fast so I don’t catch you.”
My breaths are choppy and my limbs are going numb with the way he’s holding me. But I don’t care about that. I only care about the one thing, the one word he said that isn’t the first time I’ve heard it said in reference to him.
“You’re not a monster,” I blurt out.
He freezes, his heated body going still, pushed against mine.
I wasn’t planning on blurting it out like this. Especially something so sensitive. But I couldn’t keep it inside. I couldn’t let him call himself that horrible word. The one that, apparently, a lot of people in Black Rock use to describe him: monster. Apart from finding out his name and where he lived, I also found out about his past from Haven. About his scar and how he got it. When he was fifteen, he was in a car accident with his parents that not only killed them but also left him with severe injuries and this scar on his face. Not only that, but the reason he knows how to communicate so well with his silence is because he suffered from something called traumatic brain injury. It affected his speech and he couldn’t talk for the longest time. He had to relearn to speak, relearn something so basic as talking, and of course that only added to all the gossip about him.
My heart twists in my chest and a knot forms in my belly. I can’t even imagine the pain he must’ve gone through. To not only lose his parents in such an abrupt way but also to suffer through his own trauma. To pick himself back up amid the grief, the pain, all the fucking gossip. God, people can be so cruel, can’t they? And I realize I’m sympathizing with the enemy, with the man who hates me and has toyed with me for months. But I’m not so strong as to revel in his tragedy. I’m not so strong as to not tell him that he’s wrong.
He’s not a monster. At least not because of what happened to him.
“That’s why you live out here, don’t you?” I continue, looking up at him. “Away from everyone. Because of what people say. Because of how stupid they are. Because they are. Stupid. They’re ignorant and small-minded and fucking cruel.” Then, “Is that why you wear a mask too? Is that why you wore it? With me. Did you think I’d be scared of you? Of what you look like? Because I’m not. I’m not like other people. Your scar doesn’t scare me. Your scar doesn’t define who you are. Not in my eyes.”