Page 34 of Punishing Penelope
I put the glass on the table, my mind spinning. Oh yeah, the alcohol shoots straight to my brain without passing go. No more.
He refills both glasses.
“Peter, I—”
“Wilder, where’s your sense of adventure gone? Drink to my early demise when one day the bad guy will aim too fucking well. You can do that much for me, eh? How lethal is your job?”
Uhhh, I have a hard time resisting challenges, but he’s stomping all over my work, and I’m having enough of that shit.
“Last year, close to fifty journalists were killed while working.”
“Across the globe.”
“Well, yeah…”
“Last year, just shy of a hundred law enforcement officers were killed in the U.S. alone.”
“I’m sorry about that, but how many did the cops kill? Like ten times that number.”
“Is this your quest? Every day out there, we risk a bullet. Every fucking day, Wilder, for you, while you sit behind your desk, gnawing away at our morale with the shit you write. Huh? How many journalists were killed in the U.S. last year?”
I rack my brain, trying to remember, but the alcohol makes my thinking fuzzy.
“One, I think.”
“Hit by a tree in a storm he stupidly went into when everybody else did the sane thing and ran in the other direction.”
I grit my teeth and take another sip. Bad example. Yeah, that was kinda stupid. I need the whisky to survive this rough reckoning.
“Fine.”
Peter moves in closer until he’s right in front of me, the whole rude, utterly annoying, dangerous, delicious big bad cop. I remember big. I didn’t know it since my first and all, but he’s packing a hell of a lot more than a gun.
“Wilder.”
His voice is soft, sugary, and seductive, and despite his rude behavior and his nasty words, I’m irresistibly pulled toward it. He fingers the hair on my nape, then threads his hand through my locks and grips my hair, not too tight, just enough for the thrill to multiply tenfold, a thousandfold. My God, why does this man make my insides all gooey?
“Yes?”
“You write so well and have so much talent. It’s a shame you’ve become such a bitch.”
What the fuck?
I jerk and try to stand, but he holds me down and grabs my arms. In the next moment, he shoves them up my back and cold metal clamps around my wrists.
“What are you doing?” My heart shoots to my throat as “What are you doing?” I twist and pull my arms to get my hands free. “Let me out of here!”
“It’s time I teach you a lesson, Wilder. It’s time you learn to be a good girl.”
Chapter Eight
Peter
You’re all mine now.
You’re mine, too.
I once promised her my heart. When my soul was still uncorrupted. When I thought the world was black and white. When I believed the tingling joy in my chest would last forever and not a few fucking weeks.