Page 42 of Sweet Deception

After I’ve washed myself, I step out of the shower, but I don’t turn the water off.

I dry as quickly as I can and climb into the borrowed clothes.

My muscles freeze the second I hear thatclick.

Not the bathroom but the bedroom door.

Darren’s back.

My heart goes into overdrive. A knot congeals in my throat, and I swallow hard.

This is it…

This may be my last and only opportunity to get away from him.

When the doorknob rattles, I snatch the gallon-sized shampoo bottle. Heart hammering against my ribs, I position myself in the corner of the bathroom, ready to strike.

The second Darren steps foot on the tile, his right leg skates forward on the shampoo slip-n- slide I laid out for him. His giant hand scrabbles against the wall to keep his balance, and he doesn’t see it coming when I launch the shampoo bottle square at his chest.

“What the fuck?—”

Even though he manages to bat the bottle away with his arm like a fly, the surprise is enough to topple him to the ground. The bottle careens across the bathroom, banging against the tile wall and sending even more shampoo cascading onto the floor between us, but I don’t care. I’m moving as fast as my tired, balletic body allows.

In all the commotion, Darren dropped his keys in the threshold.

Yes!

I sprint to the doorway—leaping over his felled body—and bend for the keys without slowing down.

My small victory ends the second Darren grabs my trick ankle.

I cry out in pain, toppling to the ground. My body slides as I hit the hardwood. Darren’s fist is a shackle clamped around my throbbing ankle. Biting into my cheek to keep the agony off my face, I drag my body toward the door.

Darren releases my ankle, but before I can fully recover, he’s on top of me. He wrenches one arm behind my back while the other wraps tight around the nape of my neck.

He pants, sharp irritation in his gravelly voice. “Where do you think you’re going, jailbird?”

My free hand clutches his keys, not that it matters now.

I’m caught.Damn him.

As we both pant from this unexpected struggle, I let the cool, firm surface of the floor ground me.

Darren sits on the back of my thighs, just below my ass. Even though this isn’tthe vibe of the moment at all, my whole body’s aware of the fact that this is a sex position.

Oristhis the vibe?

My face burns all over again, like the steam of the shower is still heating me up. Whether that’s because I’m embarrassed or…thrown off by this compromising position, it’s impossible to tell.

I press my eyes shut, and that’s when Darren begins to laugh. Not that unsettling, unhinged laughter from earlier. This sounds…more sincere. As if he genuinely finds me amusing.

“That was good.” He sighs, rubbing his thumb against the inside of the wrist he has pinned to my back. “I have to give it to you.”

“Get off me.” I pour all the acid inside me into my tone, jerking beneath his weight and iron grip. But squirming around only grates my ass against his pelvis, and that sensation is the last thing I need.

Why is my mind swirling back to our first night together? When he had total control over me the way he does right now…

A throb between my hips shames me enough to not speak for a year.