Page 7 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
I scoffed like I wasn’t freaking out as Able closed the distance with another step and forced his entire front against me. The alcohol on his breath could put an elephant to sleep. It was all I smelled as he leaned forward and squeezed a sloppy, wet kiss to the tip of my nose. His saliva slid into my nostrils, and I had never felt anything more disgusting.
My eyes flicked to the bottle of bourbon on the table behind him. The contents sat low behind the glass, nearly gone. I prayed to whatever higher power existed that Able had found it that way. That he was not plastered out of his mind.
“This isn’t funny, Able.”
I shoved again, but it was hopeless. I weighed barely a hundred pounds, and he doubled my weight. I parted my lips to shout, but his meaty fist covered it as he ground his hardness against my stomach.
Fight, Emery. You’ve got this.
I tried.
I kicked.
I clawed.
I screamed, even when his hand swallowed my cries.
Desperate, I sunk my teeth as deep as I could into the fleshy part of his palm. He cursed and released me long enough for me to run two steps before his arm wrapped around my midsection and hauled me against him.
Granite muscles met my exposed back. He carried me to the desk and bent me over it. My palms hit the mahogany with a hard Smack! I used the backs of them to cushion my head as it banged against the table. It was useless.
My vision blurred. I still saw stars by the time Able had torn the back of my dress and started peppering sickening kisses all over my flesh. His kisses formed a scattered constellation of saliva across my skin.
I gasped when I finally found my voice again. I could scream, but I was too far for anyone to hear and he would just covered my mouth again.
Switching tactics, I begged, “My lips.”
“Hmm?”
His tongue swiped a trail along my spine.
“My lips. Kiss my lips.”
Able spun me around and dug his erection into my stomach. “Emery Winthrop. So eager to please. Who knew?”
He let me run a hand through his hair as I stretched up to meet his kiss, standing on the tips of my toes to reach his lips despite my he
ight. He groaned into my mouth, a palm splayed on my lower back and the other trying desperately to unzip his pants.
I covered his fumbling fingers with mine, moved them to the side, and pulled the zipper of his dress slacks down. When they pooled around his feet and his boxers dropped with them, I kneed him as hard as I could in the balls.
Shock coated his face. I grasped the opportunity to knee him again. I refused to be the girl in the horror movie who died because she didn’t go in for the kill. I didn’t watch as Able collapsed to the floor.
Toppling the desk chair over him and lifting the hem of my tattered dress as high as I could, I took off into a sprint toward the hallway, barely making it a foot out the door before I crashed into something rock solid.
Emery, only you, I chided, would escape a near-rape and run into a wall.
I grabbed whatever I could to steady myself. Guanashina fabric slipped through my palms before my fingers latched onto it, digging slightly into the owner of the suit.
“Easy, Tiger.”
Relief flooded my limbs at the sound of Nash’s voice. I blinked away the tears that built behind my eyes while Nash came into gradual focus. Time played tricks on my mind as I took my time stitching the image of him together like patchwork on a quilt.
Nash Prescott was thrift-shop beauty, threadbare and jaded, the memory of something once beautiful lingering as he looked on the world with war-torn eyes. His contempt for Eastridge reflected on his face, hard edges and endless rage that, on normal days, forced me to look away.
The women of Eastridge fawned over him, the dead eyes and the self-assured sneer. The sheer masculinity that clung to him like an expensive cologne. But when I stared at him, I saw something sad. A priceless shirt with a stain on the front.
I meant it as a compliment. There was something arresting about someone who regarded the world for what it was. Even if he couldn’t see the beauty, he saw the truth. And because that truth was layered with ugly and flaws, I struggled to look at him most times.
