Hundreds (Dollar Book 3) by Pepper Winters

Author:Pepper Winters [Winters, Pepper]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-05-02T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

______________________________

Pim

THE SPOON HAD long since switched from cold metal to warm friend.

It nestled between my breasts like an emblem of who Elder was turning me into.

I’d stolen for him.

I’d headed from the bar with something that wasn’t mine and sat at a table with no guilt.

Sure, the hotel had thousands of spoons—and most would go missing over time or be thrown away from overuse—but I’d taken it without requesting, and I would keep it with no shame this time.

Unlike the photo frame, I didn’t itch with the need to return it. I relished in its weight inside my bra. Somehow, it became a talisman of power. I sat taller. I breathed deeper. I became alive with its magic wedged against my breasts.

The breasts I used to hate as they made men beat me.

The breasts I used to despise because it made me female when I wanted to be nothing. I wanted to be no one with no physical form, no pain, no blood or body to hurt.

But now…sitting with that spoon kissing my skin and Elder sizzling with everything he bottled up, I unlocked another part of me.

A part that was finally grateful to be a woman. Thankful I hadn’t given into death’s delightful siren and had survived. Life was better. Life was mine to steal and manipulate and decide.

I wanted to hug myself with how exciting the world suddenly seemed. How many opportunities and missed experiences I had to compensate for. I wanted to steal another spoon. And another. And another. I wanted forks and knives and vases and figurines. I wanted to take and take—to take back what was stolen from me.

Elder didn’t speak as we sat facing each other over an intimate table swathed in shadow and cloaked in privacy. A single candle flickered on the navy table cloth. A white rose beside it almost as perfect as the origami dollar ones Elder had perfected.

The air was heavy with everything we didn’t say.

He knew something had happened to me.

And I knew he battled far more than he let on.

We read each other—holding entire conversations in nuances and flickering eyelashes, building our own decisions and theories without asking for the truth from the other.

“Hello, I’ll be your waiter for tonight.”

I flinched in surprise as an unwanted interloper ruined the heightened atmosphere between Elder and me.

Elder tore his eyes from mine, smiling curtly at the stylish young man with a white cloth over his arm and crisp notepad and pen.

The waiter tipped his head. “Are you ready to order? What can I get you?”

My ears rung as Elder snatched up the unlooked at menu and barked a command. His seductive timbre entered my hearing, but his words didn’t compute.

I didn’t have a clue what we’d eat as my ears stopped working in favour of my eyes imprinting every little thing about him. The way he sipped his water after the waiter left. The way he fiddled with his silver wave cufflinks. The way he tried to stop looking at me, but within a few seconds, his eyes found mine again and couldn’t let go.

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