Breaking Rules (Delta Force Strong #2) - Elle James Page 0,46
Sunny up into it since it was jacked up at an odd angle. Once she was inside, he climbed up into the living area and pulled her into his arms.
Sunny wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned up to brush her lips across his. “We’ve only just met, but I feel like I’ve known you for years.”
“We’ve lived a few lifetimes in the past couple days. Kind of like cats.” He brushed a strand of her hair back behind her ear. “Think we could be falling in love?”
She laughed and squeezed him tight. “I’d say it’s a definite possibility.”
“Good, because I’m about to break all my self-imposed rules, and I think love is as good an excuse as any.”
“It’s the best one I can think of,” she said breathlessly.
“I think I love you, Sunny Daye.”
“I know I love you, Ryan Hayes.”
“I think that needs a kiss to seal that deal.”
“You’re right.”
He crushed her to him and kissed her like there might be no tomorrow.
The way their luck had been running, that was a possibility. Why waste any more time when they could love in the moment?
THE END
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SEAL JUSTICE
BROTHERHOOD PROTECTORS Book #13
New York Times & USA Today
Bestselling Author
ELLE JAMES
Chapter 1
Reggie McDonald held her breath and listened for him. She shivered, her naked body chilled by the cool damp air of her prison. Though her brain was murky, her thoughts unclear, and her strength diminished, she knew what she had to do. When she could hear no sounds of boots on the wooden steps leading down into the earthen cellar, she continued digging. Inch by inch, she scraped away at the soil of her cell, praying she was correct in assuming hers was on the edge of the group of cells. If she dug long enough, she might see daylight and find a way to escape the hell she’d been trapped in for what felt like a lifetime.
Using the tin cup she’d been given to drink from, she scooped dirt from the corner behind the door. That small space was hidden from her captor when he came to feed her or shackle her to take her up to the big house where he tortured her and the other young women he’d kidnapped and held in the horrible dungeon beneath his house.
If she got out, she’d find help to get the other women out and save them from the sociopath who forced them to bow to his bidding. If they didn’t do what he said, he whipped them with a riding crop or shocked them with a cattle prod. Sometimes, he burned them with the lit end of the cigars he smoked.
To keep them pliant to his will, he drugged their food and water, making them weak and groggy, unable to form clear thoughts or fight back.
Reggie had caught on to what he’d been doing. She couldn’t quit eating or drinking completely, but she’d skip a day and use that time of semi-clear thinking to work through the problem to come up with a solution. On those clear days, she’d acted just as drugged when she’d been shackled and taken up the wooden stairs to the Master’s house. When she could see out a window, she’d determined the house sat on the side of a hill, the slope dipping downward from the back of the structure. Though the women were trapped in the cellar, the earthen walls of their prison couldn’t be that thick, especially on the far end where she was being kept. The hill sloped sharply on that end, giving her hope that, with steady digging, she’d eventually break free of captivity and escape.
Reggie prayed she was correct and scooped faster, pushing the soil she’d dislodged into the sides of the walls and floor, packing it down so that her captor couldn’t tell it was fresh dirt.
She paused again as a sound penetrated the wooden door of her cell.
Footsteps.
“He’s coming,” a voice whispered. Reggie recognized Terri’s voice. She was in the first cell, closest to the stairs. She’d been there the longest. A single mother of a little girl, she’d held out all those days, suffering through the torture in hope of seeing her little girl again. Lately, she’d fallen into despair of ever escaping.
Quiet sobs sounded from other cells along the row.
Reggie emptied her cup, quickly patted the dirt she’d removed into the ground, dragged her tattered blanket over her naked body