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“Five!”
“Wait, what? No, you can’t count down.”
“Four!”
“Stop it.” This couldn’t be happening. Her time was being taken from her. There was no way for her to think past the panic. It was all happening too fast.
“Three!”
“Logan, please, stop this. I get you’re angry with me. I know you are.” The entire town was, but this wasn’t the way forward. It couldn’t be. There’s no way she could accept this as being all she had to—
“Two!”
“No, please, give me more time. You have to understand you’re wrong about a lot of things. So very wrong. Please, Logan. You have to see reason.”
“I like hearing you say please. Believe me, you’re going to be begging for a lot more by the time I’m through with you.” The fingers that had touched her so gently traveled to her neck, and he wrapped his hand around her throat, giving it a gentle squeeze. He didn’t cut the air off, but the threat was there. He was the one with all the power, while she was powerless to do anything.
“One!”
There was no time. She couldn’t let him make such a life-changing decision.
“Yes!” She cried out the word. The moment she did, she wanted the world to open her up and swallow her whole.
This couldn’t be happening.
But with each passing second, there was no denying exactly what was going on. Logan was going to use her. One of the men from her past had used her for Logan. Nothing she had with Grant was real. She’d wondered what had happened to him. He traveled a lot with his work. At least that was what he said to her. After she slept with him, they continued dating for a couple of months before he broke it off, and it was the end of their relationship. The end of everything.
“Yes?” Logan asked. He gave another squeeze to her neck before finally pulling away and letting her breathe.
“Yes, I will do whatever it is you need me to do. Just don’t release them. Please, destroy them.”
“There is that tiny word again. It means so little to a lot of people. Please. You never said it to me before,” he said. “I rather enjoy hearing you say it now.” He took a step away from her and glanced up and down her body.
She wore jeans and a shirt, but from the way Logan looked at her, she could be naked. Stripped bare for his pleasure.
“Strip!”
“What?”
“If you think I’m going to allow you to head home, knowing you had plans to skip town, you’ve got another think coming. You’re here. You’re mine, and I’m not letting you go. Now fucking strip.”
“Logan, please.”
“That word again. It was nice, but now, until I want to hear it, it’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“You’re not allowed to say it or you will be punished.”
“I don’t know what sick kind of revenge you want—”
His hand was once again around her throat. “Let’s get something straight here, sweetheart. You’re not the one in charge here. I am. I say what goes, and what I say goes right now, is you stripping off your clothes and doing as you’re told.”
She looked toward Hunter. The other man stood by the door, looking as if this was a regular nighttime activity for him. It wasn’t something she was used to on a Monday night.
“Don’t look to him for help. In fact, don’t look to anyone for help. The sheriff won’t come for you. No one in this town will, and the first person who does, I’ll kill them.”
“Is that what you are now, a killer?”
“I’m a lot of things. I’ve had to be in order to survive. Maybe one day you’ll see some of my new sides. Now, enough small talk. Strip.”
He stepped away from her.
She covered the space around her neck. He’d held onto her just a little too tightly. It had been on the verge of pain, but now, she was free. Would his marks still be with her come morning, or disappear?
Pushing those thoughts from the back of her mind, she kicked off her shoes. She hadn’t exactly paid attention to the best kind of running shoes. These were slip-on ones, and at the first sign of trouble, they wouldn’t last. Not to run in. Next, she didn’t know what to do. Her jeans or her shirt? Either one would expose her underwear to his gaze.
“Hurry up. I’m not wanting to wait around forever for you to make a necessary decision.” He tapped his watch.
It didn’t matter which one she removed. They were both coming off anyway. She went for her jeans first, unsnapping the button and trying to ignore both men standing in the room, watching her. Were they watching her?
She didn’t make a habit of getting naked for anyone, and yet here she was, doing exactly that for two men. Her previous lovers, she’d been with some time and always expected her time with them to last a lifetime. Relationships had always been important to her. She had hoped to get over what happened to her, but the men in her life hadn’t lasted. Nothing had worked.
