Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 88057 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88057 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“No.” I managed a shaky chuckle. “More like I was scared that I care too much for you. Before, I was always the one to fall too fast and too hard. I was afraid I wanted this to work out more than you.”
“Not possible. I want you with everything I have. That’s what I should have said. I’ll want you whether you’re in Atlanta or LA. That’s not the issue. I want you happy. And the show makes you happy. That’s why I wanted you to take the offer. I wasn’t trying to push you away.”
“Wow.” I blinked. “You found some pretty good words. Better than mine. I want you like that too. I want you enough to take a pass on the offer for the show, but I’d like to have both.”
“You can have both.” Tugging me to him, he touched my face. “And I could have done better at saying I’m not going anywhere.”
“I like you. I like you so much it scares me.”
“Yeah, well, you terrify me. So we’re even.” Deftly removing Hercules’s bag from my arm, he gently set it on the floor before sitting in one of the side chairs and pulling me onto his lap.
“Duncan said…”
“Hush. He said desk. This is a chair, and I just need to hold you a minute. No one’s getting naked on camera.”
“There’s a camera?” I whirled my head around.
“We’re a security firm.” Laughing, he stroked from my jaw to my neck to my shoulder, soothing and riling me up in one smooth pass. “Now, let me kiss you.”
“Camera.” The word got muffled as he came in for the kiss, and I let him. A little kiss wouldn’t hurt, even if he was serious about there being a camera. Okay. Not little. Or short. As things between us tended to go, the kiss went from a delicate little peck to an out-of-control wild thing that left me clutching his T-shirt and both of us breathing hard.
“As it turns out, I took the afternoon off. I was planning to come to you. But now that you’re here…”
“I am.” I ran a finger along his collar. Knowing he’d been going to come to me made my chest all warm. I hadn’t scared him away. And sitting in his lap like this felt safe and secure, and I both never wanted to move and wanted to run away with him to a cave without nosy friends, real-world logistics, and tough choices. I gazed deeply into his eyes. “I’m here.”
“If I’m here and you’re here, wanna play hooky with me?” He grinned. “I know, we probably need to talk more…”
“We do. But we can talk and do…other activities as well.”
“Private activities.” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “I live pretty close to here. You and Herc wanna come over?”
He’d mentioned me visiting the day before, and my seeing his space seemed important to him. Funny that as much I kept waiting for him to change his mind, he seemed to fear the same thing. We were a pair, but perhaps our doubts could cancel each other out.
“I’ll come.”
“That you will.” He winked, and heat unfurled in my gut. Yeah, we needed to talk more, but other business was way more pressing, and a locked door couldn’t come soon enough.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ambrose
“God, I want you.” Harley tugged me close the second he shut his apartment door, barely giving me enough time to set Hercules down. “Why do I feel like it was two years instead of two days?”
“This is what I’m saying about distance—”
“Can you say it later?” He nuzzled my cheek, beard tickling and sending electric shocks down my spine.
“I can.” I was breathless already and way too keyed up to do more than give a cursory glance at the apartment, which had a small living area open to a narrow kitchen with a breakfast bar. It was as neat as I’d expect from Harley, with a big crowded bookcase full of paperbacks and a large flat-screen TV dominating one wall. A short hall near the kitchen led to what was likely the bedroom, but the trek might as well as be over the Rockies, given how much I needed Harley. Even the couch seemed way too far from where we stood by the door.
“I had this whole plan to be a gentleman, give you a tour, find Herc a place to hang out…”
“He found one.” I pointed to where he’d found a sunny spot near a window to stretch out on the beige carpeting. The place was a pretty standard apartment—the sort of setup that would work as a generic bachelor pad set on any number of shows. But it was also Harley’s, and I liked it already as a result.
“That he did.” Harley dropped kisses all along my jaw before finding my mouth for a scorching kiss. I shamelessly rubbed against him as he plundered my mouth. He controlled the kiss in an unmistakably dominating way yet still managed to make every move feel like my own idea. It was intoxicating, giving up control even as I kept my power.