Page 17 of Marked By Tank
Chapter 3
Julie
Warmthwakesmeinthe middle of the night.
Something solid is pressed along my back. Heat wraps around me from behind. A hand rests low on my stomach, broad and heavy through the blanket, and every breath I take catches on the hard line of a chest against my shoulder blades.
For one thick second, I do not move.
My body knows before I do.
A man. Big. Too close.
My eyes open into dark.
The room is wrong. Strange ceiling. Gray wall. A weak stripe of parking lot light bleeding around cheap curtains. The hum of an air conditioner rattling somewhere near the window.
Not home.
My heart gives one hard, painful kick.
I go still.
The hand on my stomach is warm. The arm around me is heavy enough that I can feel the strength in it even half asleep. Whoever is behind me feels massive in a way that crowds every inch of space around me.
My throat closes.
A flash cuts through the fog in my head.
Red velvet. Bright lights. Men watching.
Sold.
Fear slams into me so hard it burns.
No.
Oh God. No.
I lurch forward with a sound tearing out of me before I know I’m making it. The arm around me tightens on instinct, and panic detonates in my chest. I twist hard, kicking free of the sheets, scrambling across the bed in a tangle of blanket and bare legs, trying to get away from the body behind me before he can pull me back.
He sits up fast.
“Hey.”
His voice is rough with sleep, low and deep enough that it goes through me like a pulse.
Not the smooth, smiling voice from the stage.
Not one of the guards who dragged girls around like packages.
That only scares me more because I still do not know who he is.
My hand closes around the lamp on the bedside table. I snatch it up with both hands and swing as I turn.
He catches it before it can hit him.
His hand closes around the base in one clean movement. The cord jerks. The shade tilts sideways. My arms shake with the force of it, but the lamp does not move.
