“Just tell me about it,” he said. “I’m very forgiving if you come to me seeking forgiveness and understanding.” His eyes narrowed slightly, and he finally looked away.
“But if you’re a coward,” Quarry said, his voice taking on an edge, “and if you talk about me and slander my name without coming to me for forgiveness, I will have no mercy.”
He swung back and looked at me again. “No mercy.”
Everyone was completely still.
I felt my pulse starting to pick up again as Quarry stared at me long and hard.
Then he broke into a smile and looked around the room. “Okay, that’s enough for today.”
A moment later, the gym door was open again, and people were milling around, talking and laughing and joking. A few guys were taking the chance to get some sparring in, while some others were going to grab a beer.
Jimbo asked me if I wanted to join them for a drink.
“No thanks,” I said. “I’m pretty beat.” We shook hands and then I headed out of the stifling gym and into the cool night air. As I walked, my thoughts were racing.
Was it possible that Quarry knew the FBI had come and spoken to me? I didn’t see why he’d have kept it to himself, but the way he’d continually looked at me during his speech had made we wonder.
The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. I was sick and tired of Quarry’s games and his threats and his bullying. I had made the huge mistake of leaving my old coach and my old gym and coming to work with him, and I’d already paid a price.
I was done paying.
“Fuck it,” I said aloud to nobody but myself. Then I pulled out my wallet and grabbed the business card that Nick Cairns had given me that morning. I stared at it for a long time.
A moment later, I took out my cell and started to dial the number that would change everything.
END OF COMPLETELY CONSUMED, ADDICTED TO YOU,
BOOK EIGHT
LOOK FOR BOOK NINE, COMING SOON!
In the meantime, if you’d like to read more about Cambridge University, enjoy this bonus book, NAKED, the first book of a sizzling new adult series by New York Times Bestselling Author Kelly Favor…
NAKED (NAKED, EPISODE 1)
by Kelly Favor
Other books by Kelly Favor include the New York Times bestselling series, For His
Pleasure and Fight For Her.
? 2013, all rights reserved.
Caelyn Murphy was in trouble.
The car that she was driving down I-95 at just past three in the morning was starting to make strange noises, and the check engine light had come on, a brilliant and panicky yellow.
“No, no, no,” she moaned, taking her foot off the gas and trying to let the car coast a little while before pressing the gas pedal again. The car was shaking now, vibrating as if someone had decided to turn it into a washer and set the cycle on “spin.”
She heard grinding noises, too—and couldn’t imagine any way those noises could be just a passing thing. Something had gone very, very wrong.
Caelyn wasn’t big on praying, but she started to pray now. She wiped her blonde hair away from her face, glancing at herself in the rearview mirror and being met by a pair of wide, frightened blue eyes and a pale complexion.
There was nobody else on the road—she hadn’t seen a car in probably half an hour, when she’d passed the Charlton Plaza some miles back. There had been a few trucks and a couple of other lonely drivers then, but afterwards it was just her on this dark and lonely highway, her headlights sweeping out in front of her car as she tried desperately to outrun the pain and fear of what had happened to her just a couple of hours ago.
Pressing the gas seemed to do nothing but create ever more violent sounds from her automobile, and so Caelyn was once more forced to take her foot off the gas. She’d kicked her heels off and was driving barefoot. She was wearing the same skirt she’d had on all evening—the one that was too short and had made her uncomfortable with how much leg it revealed—and it was ripped now, just a little bit.
Glimpsing the ripped skirt out of the corner of her eye brought back memories that she was trying to forget. Caelyn closed her eyes tightly for a moment and shook her head, trying to force her mind to clear, focus on the present.
One of her knees was scraped raw, and it hurt.
Her low-cut top was stretched and misshapen from being yanked and pulled. But none of those things bothered Caelyn as much as the ache in her stomach and the burning between her thighs.
She bit her lip, wanting to scream. Her eyes were starting to fill up with tears, causing the road in front of her to double and triple in her field of vision.
Why was this happening, now, on top of everything else? Why was her stupid car betraying her too?
She pounded the steering wheel with the palm of her hand.