Page 64 of Raff
Lula
There was a split second of incomprehension.
The room was pitch black.
I’d been fast asleep.
And alcohol was still lingering at the edges of my mind.
For two seconds, three tops, I couldn’t wrap my head around why I was awake. Violently awake.
My head swirled.
My heart pounded.
Something coiled in my stomach.
But then I felt it.
The unmistakable feeling of a man’s hand around my throat.
For another second, my mind flashed back to the club, to Raff’s hand in the same place.
The difference being that Raff had been soft, almost gentle. And this hand was pressing hard enough to cut off my air, to make my throat hurt, and my head grow light.
I struck out blindly, swatting, grabbing, pulling, scratching.
When I couldn’t dislodge the hand, my hands struck out higher, using the heels of my hands to look for soft targets, only to find everything soft. So soft, it was fuzzy.
He had on a mask.
A choked sound escaped me at that realization just as another hand moved out, clamping over my mouth.
Was he just going to kill me in bed?
Even as I thought it, his giant mitt shifted so his meaty fingers pressed down on my nose too.
The lack of oxygen was instantaneous, making my chest constrict, burn, ache.
Panic settled in quickly, my blood surging through my veins, my heart jackhammering against my ribcage, my mind racing so fast it was impossible to catch up with a single thought.
Except… “no.”
No.
This couldn’t be it.
This wasn’t the end.
I couldn’t have my life snuffed out before I got a chance to turn it around, before I got home and restructured my priorities that had shifted a bit on this road trip, not until I got to find happiness, not just success. And, God, not before I got to take Raff to bed.
Maybe that last one should have been low on my list of priorities, but being suffocated had a funny way of showing you some unexpected things about yourself.
Wait.
Raff.
Raff was in the house.
