“Open your mouth,” he whispers, only the gun between us.
I don’t, and I don’t say anything.
His expression doesn’t change. I’m used to the quick temper of defiance when women don’t obey the men in my world. I’m used to the indifference I feel about their tantrums, but it doesn’t stop me from expecting them.
His weight shifts, more fully over my body, and I can feel parts of him I don’t want to.
Fuck, is he hard?
If not, his cock is massive. Even if he is…
He never let me touch him that evening.
Everything was about me.
He tilts his head as he studies me and doesn’t move the gun from my lips. The barrel is cold. If it wasn’t, that’d be more frightening.
I clench my teeth and keep my lips together.
He lifts his chin to look down his nose at me.
I wait for the act of violence to force me to comply.
But there isn’t one.
He just stares.
And he doesn’t stop staring.
Seconds stretch on.
Somewhere from beyond the open door of my car, hopefully high in the mountains, a wolf howls.
My pulse beats in my neck.
His weight is heavy, pressing down on my organs, and every exhale from my nose hits the gun and reflects back to me, creating a warm sensation above my Cupid’s bow.
I shift beneath him, as much as I can, which isn’t a lot, but he registers the movement and smiles. “If you don’t open your mouth, you’ll meet Indie at the bottom of the lake.”
“If I believed you?—”
He pushes the barrel between my teeth and I inwardly curse myself for giving into his bait and speaking at all.
That was the opportunity he was waiting for.
He jams it far back, the metallic-plastic mix taste of the gun is bitter and parts of it press against my molars. Saliva immediately starts to pool along my tongue, in the back of my throat, and I hate him for making me look like this mess beneath him.
You are going to die.
But I don’t try to fight him. I hold his stare easily, without blinking, but fear starts to form in the pit of my stomach.
In my mind, I’m crawling in the air of tangy blood. My knees and fingers are slippery and I’ve never seen this much red.
Someone is the source of it all, but I can’t remember much of them. Lynx said Mom killed herself. My dad, Lynx’s brother-in-law, had long been dead from an overdose of his own supply.
Mom left me. Leftus.
But it always feels like there’s somethingmore.Everything prior to that night is a blur. Usually, so is this moment in my head.
