CHAPTER FORTY

The eerie music played on as they lay in bed. Some of the songs she recognized, some she didn’t. There couldn’t be more than an hour on the record. Hadn’t they been down here months? Years? But it must have been less than an hour. Was time even real? The curtain had been pulled back to reveal the void where every second was eternity, and there was no way back out again to where time marched on like obedient linear soldiers.

She’d tried to prepare herself for the hitting, but when Clint bent her over and fucked her instead while she was too scared to be turned on, it

brought everything home. She was his property. She didn’t want this, but he’d been in the grip of something she didn’t feel strong enough to break

through. The Clint that acknowledged her wouldn’t be the one she thought she’d fallen in love with.Whatever romantic fantasies she’d had of love between them scattered and faded into the empty air. Why did it have to be like this?

And to allow him to kiss her like that… to r