Savage Cinderella Read Online Free Page A

beyond her reach. Why did his
presence make her question her future? Thinking about the future
only made her sad. Her very survival depended not on another
person, but on living one day—one moment—at a time. She pushed the
thoughts aside.
    The gray light of dawn seeped through the
window and sent shadows across her prisoner's face, which now held
an almost angelic expression. Brinn’s eyes wandered down the curved
muscles of his neck and shoulders and up his outstretched arms. She
watched the rise and fall of his wide chest. Then she followed the
line of his lean, muscular body, aware of the sensations that crept
along her skin.
    Inspecting his tanned arms—the fine hairs
golden in the first rays of morning light—she wondered what it
would feel like to touch them. Was the hair as soft as it looked?
Were his muscles as firm and taut as they appeared? Her eyes
drifted across his smooth chest. The contours of each defined curve
of his torso made her flesh rise and tingle. It felt like it did
when she stood under a cool waterfall on a hot summer day—a
sensation that took her breath away. The pounding in her ears was
not from the familiar torrent of cascading water, but from the
blood that pumped furiously through her veins.
    Her eyes fell below his waist, and her heart
nearly stopped. Her first instinct was fear. This gave way to
curiosity as she noticed the large protruding shape under the
blankets.
    Tentatively crossing the room, buck knife
drawn, she silently observed Justin's slow, steady breathing. She
tugged at his bonds, making sure they were secure. Brinn cautiously
lifted the blankets and peered beneath them. She sucked in a
breath, dropped the covers, and backed away.
    Her limbs began to shake, her stomach
clenching in a tight fist. A suffocating darkness closed in around
her. She gripped the sharp edge of her blade. A fat drop of blood
hit the top of her foot. She inhaled sharply and willed the sting
of pain to hold her steady. Images of the man who’d taken her as a
child flashed behind her eyes. The pain he’d inflicted, the torment
that his body had caused when he penetrated her, all the years she
spent trying to forget, washed away in a single moment. How could
she let this happen? Why had she brought this stranger here to her
home? Her mind spun with a mix of emotions too many to name.
    The memory of removing all of his clothes the
night before returned in painful clarity.
     
    When she’d gotten him settled on the small
bed and applied the yarrow root to stop his head from bleeding,
she’d noticed his skin was like ice. After she put on her own dry
clothes, she’d sat frozen herself for several minutes debating the
necessity of it, but the intensity of his shivers gave her no
choice but to remove the man’s clothing if she wanted to keep him
alive.
    The knife shook in her hand as she unbuttoned
his shirt. Her heart thundered in her chest and the old familiar
knot gripped her stomach. She forced her way past her shaking hands
and focused instead on her breathing, conjuring images of the high
meadow where she felt safe surrounded by the wall of tall pines and
thick shrubbery.
    She put the knife down to maneuver his large
and inert body to remove the wet shirt. She noticed he had a thin
chain around his neck but decided to leave it. When her fingers
touched the smooth line of his collar bone, they lingered for a
moment. His beauty struck her like a stone, the traitorous
sensations of warmth pooling in her belly and then turning to acid
as fear took hold. Gritting her teeth to summon her courage, she
moved on.
    She reached for the top button of his pants,
and then jerked her hand back as if stung by a hornet. She sank to
the floor and clasped her hands together, all vestiges of control
gone. She rocked like she always did when the bad memories
resurfaced, humming louder than the thoughts that clouded her mind
and threatened to drag her into the darkness. She stopped and moved
away from the bed numerous