Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 124971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“Mine’s good,” he said softly. “Thanks.”
“You’re still going to that appointment, though.”
He grinned. “I see you’ve started bossing me around again. You’ve clearly sobered up.”
“I’ve only had about half a glass, actually.” Both our gazes drifted to the vodka bottle on the coffee table. Riggs nodded.
“Good to have the real you back.”
“The real me still wants to have sex with you.”
His jaw constricted. “To get back at Cocksucker?”
I shrugged. Honestly, I wanted to have sex with Riggs simply because he was the most attractive, fascinating, thrilling man I’d ever come across. But admitting so to him was a terrible idea. He was allergic to monogamy.
“Tell me, Daphne, do you think I’m some kind of a party trick?” His voice was so unbearably cool that I couldn’t believe it had come out of him. Icy.
“What? No!” I said breathlessly. “Obviously not.”
“You sure about that? I did sleep with half the fucking universe.” His voice was mocking, but his eyes were two frosty lakes of pain.
“Did I offend you?” My eyebrows creased. “Riggs, even your mates—”
“You’re not one of my mates. You don’t have the flight time and context to form an opinion about me,” he said flatly.
Horrified, I sat upright. “Look, I didn’t mean that at all. I just . . .” Wanted to convince you to sleep with me for my own pathetic, selfish reasons. “I thought I was paying you a compliment. Most men would love to be known as womanizers. This is a no-strings-attached offer.”
“We’re married.” I couldn’t take my eyes off his. They were so stormy, and for the first time, I realized Riggs did have feelings. Loads of them, quite frankly. And nobody had really paid them any attention thus far.
“Fake married,” I said weakly.
“Real living together.”
“I’m a big girl,” I said, surprised by the avalanche of emotions rippling in my own chest. “And I’ve been good for a very long time, doing the right thing, playing by the rules.” I paused. “I’m done playing the sensible go-getter role. I want to do something because I want to, not because I think it’s a means to an end.”
“And that something is me,” he finished, a sardonic smile tainting his Cupid’s lips. “I’m touched, but it’s a pass.”
There was something so final about the way he said it that I knew better than to ask again. My pride wouldn’t let me. Suddenly, I was full to the brim with remorse for putting him in this position. What was I thinking? I treated him like some sort of sex machine.
I nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to be. No hard feelings, yeah?”
I forced myself to look up and smile at him. “No hard feelings.”
Then, to break the tension that had built up in the room to a point there was barely any oxygen left to breathe, I announced, “Now excuse me while I go iron my blouses. It always puts me in a grand mood.”
This time, he didn’t award me with his usual chuckle. I drifted to my room in silence, wondering at what point Riggs Bates’s laughter had become my favorite soundtrack.
Since I didn’t have room for cutlery, let alone an ironing board, whenever I steamed my clothes, I’d do it on my bed, using a piece of tile as a buffer so as not to burn my duvet. It made ironing quite the operation, seeing as I had to bend over in an R shape to ensure my clothes were crisp and wrinkle-free. Strangely enough, I did not derive my usual pleasure from doing something that would make me appear upper class.
I kept running the hot iron over the same crease on my cherry-red blouse distractedly. I managed not to think about what had happened with Riggs out there, instead refocusing on my newly found hatred toward BJ.
I wondered if he’d always been a rubbish person, or if he’d sprouted privilege and brattiness in recent years, when he realized I’d stick around for the perks? My guess was he’d always been a twat, and I simply looked the other way. Well, it was safe to say my nose was now deeply shoved in BJ’s bad behavior. And that no amount of wealth in the world was worth sticking to a terrible partner.
I was running the iron over the crinkle in the sleeve again when I felt something hard and hot pressing between my thighs from behind. Oh, no. Did I wee myself? I could swear I wasn’t drunk anymore.
Wait, no. It was a palm. A human palm. Riggs’s palm?
Ohmigod.
I clenched involuntarily around his hand, ribbons of warm tension uncurling beneath my navel. He cupped me from behind, and I wasn’t sure if I was more confused or more hot and bothered by this surprising turn of events.
I wanted to ride his hand to a climax but stayed perfectly still, afraid it was some sort of a game or payback for my utterly selfish behavior.