Can’t Win Me Back by Ginger Sue

A cold, damp chill and the acrid bite of dust and stale tobacco filled Lauren's senses as she struggled to open her eyelids. Reality blurred with the remnants of a nightmare.

Blurry and disoriented, she felt a pair of icy hands stroking her skin.

"Who's there?"

Lauren's eyes snapped open, bulging wide like a startled deer. As she shifted her focus, a horrifying scene unfolded before her.

Freddy sat by her bedside, his cold hands creeping along her slender waist, inching their way up, touching every inch of her skin.

surge of adrenaline fueled a frantic struggle, but her limbs met only unyielding resistance.

trapped, she could only watch as Freddy's hands roamed over her body, feeling the burning humiliation coursing through

His voice dropped to a husky murmur, thick with desire. "Telling your precious fiancé to back off? Playing coy, are

my fiancé... You're not!" Tears welled in Lauren's eyes as she

fight me when I'm being nice!" Freddy's patience wore thin, his demeanor shifting as his darker impulses took hold. His eyes widened, his arm rose, and he slapped her. "You're a lunatic despised by the Harpers. The Hodgsons graciously accepted you,

Taylor would even consider you, you idiot? He just enjoys the thrill of competition! It's like how I despise Landon to the core, so I wanted to marry you—just to let him taste the bitterness

anymore, Lauren.