Read Online Hush by Karen Robards - Free Book Online Page A

and straight, and over the following six months they’d fallen in love.
    She’d married him because he’d needed taking care of, and, in the aftermath of losing the little sister she’d raised practically from birth, she’d needed someone who needed taking care of. She saw that now. But then—she’d been in love with him.
    At least, with Lorna, she’d been there at the end. Not so with Jeff. He’d died alone.
    He must have been so scared .
    Don’t think about it.
    Her throat tightened. Tears stung her eyes. She gripped the soap so hard her nails dug into it.
    Crying won’t change a thing. I am not going to cry.
    Riley let her head rest back against the smooth porcelain and squeezed her eyes even more tightly shut as she fought the tears she refused to shed.
    A prickle along the back of her neck was accompanied by the eerie sense that she was not alone. Opening her eyes, blinking to force back welling tears, Riley caught the shadow of movement with her peripheral vision, turned her head so fast it hurt her neck, and saw a man step inside her bathroom and stop. Just like that, there he was, gray sneakers planted on the white tile just inside the door.
    Every cell in her body froze.
    Average height. Muscular build. Dark jeans. Navy polo shirt. A black ski mask pulled down over his face.
    â€œHello, Riley,” he said, and as her heart jumped into her throat and her eyes popped wide he leaped for her.
    Terror exploded inside her. Jolted into instant action, she screamed, so loud it echoed off the tiles, and hurled the round little cake of soap at him. It hit the middle of his chest and bounced harmlessly off even as she splashed and scrabbled at the slick porcelain and grabbed the built-in soap dish for leverage, somehow managing to catapult to her feet.
    â€œShut the fuck up.” He snatched at her and got the billowing shower curtain instead as she flung it at him and shied violently away.
    Go, go, go .
    Shrieking like a train whistle, knowing that she had almost no chance of escape, Riley sprang from the tub. Her only hope was to somehow dodge past him, make it through the door, and run—but the bathroom was small and the sink was blocking her on the left and he was right there . Her wet feet slid precariously as they smacked down on smooth tile. Her heart jackhammered. Her pulse raced. She had no weapon, no way to escape.
    He’s between me and the door—
    â€œI said shut up .” He caught her as she tried to barrel past him, his hands— oh, God, he’s wearing gloves, white surgical gloves; this is bad —big and rough on her waist as he picked her up and threw her bodily back against the tiled wall. She hit with so much force that the breath was knocked out of her along with the scream and she banged her head, hard. The force of it snapped her teeth together, rattled her brain.
    â€œOh.” She fell heavily, landing in the slippery tub, cracking her hip and elbow and shoulder painfully on the way down, splashing into the water, causing it to spill out of the bath in a great wave.
    Stunned, she didn’t even have time to suck in air for another scream before his hands closed on her shoulders and he forced her down beneath the surface of the water. Desperately she held her breath as she went under, her mouth somehow filling with the taste of the hot, soapy water even as she clamped her lips together.
    No, no, no, no, no .
    She fought like a wild thing, thrashing and kicking as water closed over her head, shooting up her nose, filling her ears, stinging her eyes. Instinctively she snapped them shut, then a moment later forced them to open a slit so that she could see, because being able to see what was happening seemed somehow paramount to survival. He was leaning over the tub, over her, his fingers digging into her shoulders, a blurry dark shape distorted by the waves of churning water sloshing around her. With every ounce of her strength she