Nice Excerpt (unedited)
My throbbing head wakes me. The last thing I want is to open my eyes. Maybe someone set off explosives in my brain. I can hear the soft whir of a ceiling fan while the cool air cascades over me. My head actually thumps to the whir. While I’m contemplating opening my eyes, I use my other senses to give me a clue about what’s happened.
I’m not in my own bed. Mine has a lumpy mattress. The bed I’m lying on is firm and comfortable. The ceiling fan in my bedroom twirls with a loud, steady hum. This one is finely balanced and it’s only the generated wind that makes noise.
Like a remembered nightmare, I suddenly recall Dandridge’s hairy dick, a silver bat, and several men with guns. My eyes pop open. The room, thankfully, has muted light though I still squint as I look around. I give a small scream when I see a man sitting in a large chair in the shadowed corner of the room. He’s watching me. My head objects to the scream so I slam my jaw shut, roll to my side and cover my face with my forearm. A soft moan caused by the pain escapes my throat. The man doesn’t make a sound. It’s a minute or two before I can peel my eyes open again.
He’s still there.
His arms are stretch along the armrests of the chair and his fingers wrapped over the ends of the armrest. He’s tall. I know this because there is no chair-back behind the top of his shoulders and head. His legs are long and clad in suit pants similar to the ones the thugs wore. They must keep Thugs-R-Us in business.
“Miss Kinlock.” His smooth whiskey voice fills the room.
“Who…” I croak and try again, “Who are you and where am I?” A sudden ache travels behind my head and I wince and shut my eyes again.
“Lift up.” His voice startles me because it’s directly in my ear. I never heard him move. His hand slides beneath the pillow beneath my head and he helps me sit up slightly. The cool rim of a glass meets my lips. “I have something here for pain but take a drink of water first.”
He smells good—in a musky, delicious cologne and man kind of way. It’s such a stupid thing to think about when my last memories are of Dandridge’s dick and thugs with guns. I take a sip of water and then have two pills slipped between my lips. There’s this strange jolt of pleasure at his touch. It throws me off balance, more than a blow to the head has, and like an idiot, I swallow. I have no idea what kind of pills I’ve just taken. My brain is quite slow on the uptake and I decide if I swallowed illegal drugs, I’ll live with the consequences as long as they take away my damn headache.
I inhale slowly and open my eyes just in time to see the man lean his hip into the mattress and sit beside me. The sheet covering me stops just below my breasts and his movement pulls it down a bit further. He doesn’t so much as sneak a peek at my breasts. I’m impressed.
“You are?” I ask in a low voice that doesn’t distress my brain too much.
He has such an intense look of concentration on his face. I feel like a puzzle he’s attempting to put together. He moves a section of my hair off my cheek. His eyes follow the movement of his hand and I think he’s actually surprised at what he’s done. “Call me Moon.”
Damn. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I’m in a bad situation. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him. It’s the shadows of the room and the damage to my brain cells. Or, at least that’s the story I’m feeding myself. I’ve seen countless pictures of him. He’s usually escorting some woman to a ritzy fundraising event though he somehow manages to turn his face from the cameras. If not a public appearance, the pictures are taken with a telephoto lens trying to catch him in illegal activity.
I thought this book was great.