Home is Where the Heart Is (Home #1) Read Online Free Page A

falling across the floor and bouncing away.
    Hot tears fell relentlessly down her face. She struggled uselessly and shook her head
backwards and forwards as he lowered her to the floor, his grip iron tight.
    She lay trembling on the floor crying, terrified with rough, uncaring hands pulling at her clothes as the hard floor dug into her back. She tried covering her chest with her hands, feeling too exposed and afraid that if he touched her again she was going to throw up, but he held her still, her body immobilised as his hand crept up her skirt and stroked her inner thigh.

Oh god, he was going to do it, he was going to take everything from her - the one thing of hers she had left, and he was going to tear it away from her just as he had done her heart and trust.
    “Jason, please,” she managed to choke. “Not like this.”
    He stopped and stared down at her, his eyes were grey pools of emptiness looking right through
her. She had never seen this side of him, never even guessed at this cruelty he was capable of, and in that moment she had no idea who he was. She began to realise after being together nearly six months she had never truly known him.
    “You made it this way. I would have been gentle, loving even, but you wanted to play rough,” he told her coolly, pulling her shirt further away from her chest, exposing her black bra. She lay paralysed beneath him as he moved his hands below her underwear and touched her in places no one had ever been before as his lips worked clumsily on her neck.
    Something hard was pressing against her inner thigh as his fingers violated her and she felt the true meaning of helplessness. She was very ready to retreat into her mind and lock herself away from this moment when the noise from the party picked up and Isabelle heard footsteps come closer.
    This was it. This was her only chance help
    “Help!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Someone, please help me!”
    It came from nowhere.
    One minute she was screaming, and the next her voice had been cut off and she was
choking on blood as a fist came down on her face.
    “Shut up!” he screamed as he smacked her again, driving his point home. “Are you stupid? Shut up!”
    The hits finally stopped as he watched her with blind fury, panting.
    “Why’d you make me do that?” he whispered, shame colouring his cheeks as he eased away
from her slightly, his body not pinning her down as firmly.
    Get it together Isabelle , she told herself. This is the last chance you’re going to get to save
yourself and you need to take it.
    With a deep breath she gathered all the energy she had left and hit him hard in the nose so
that he reared back in pain.
    Scrambling to her feet, Isabelle kicked him in the groin to make sure he wouldn’t follow her and then she ran on shaky legs out of the room and back into the party where everyone was oblivious to what had almost happened.
    “Belle? Tom said you went to get ice?” Tate called in surprise.
    Isabelle froze for just a moment and then she began to run like she was in the Olympics, too ashamed to face Tate and desperate to get home and scrub at her skin. She lost one of her shoes in her panic so her gait was uneven but she didn’t care. Her sole goal was getting away and going home so she could collapse in private. Thank god she only lived a couple of streets away.
    Sweat and blood dribbled into her eyes and rolled down her clammy skin as she continued to run. How was she ever going to be able to face her parents like this? There would be questions, questions she wasn’t willing to answer, questions that would break her completely if she had to relive the memories.
    “Isabelle!” Tate bellowed.
    She froze, he’d come after her. Damnit Tate, did you always have to be so dependable? She could not let him see her like this, could not allow this sort of weakness in front of him.
    Fresh tears wet her cheeks and she began to feel anxious and trapped. What was the lesser of two