Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 105065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 525(@200wpm)___ 420(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 525(@200wpm)___ 420(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
I think.
“Fuck me, ye’re a stubborn wee thing.”
I shrug.
“How much money do ye need?” he asks.
“However much I get dancing every night at your club.” I need to stand firm on this. This is where the action is, and I can’t be anywhere else.
“Ye can help behind the bar,” he suggests.
“I’ll never make as much money up there as I will dancing, and you can’t tell me otherwise.”
His eyes are ice cold and brutally devoid of any sympathy towards my plight. If I thought he had heartstrings to pull, I was dead wrong. But something is still keeping him from letting me go. I don’t know what it is, and it doesn’t matter. I’m going to grab onto it with both hands and pull at the thread for all I’m worth.
I flip my hair over my shoulders and reach for my things. He needs to believe I’ll walk out that door and go somewhere else.
“I still don’t trust ye,” he says.
I glance at him over my shoulder and catch him checking out my ass. I smile, and he jerks his attention back to my face.
“I know.”
“Ye don’t want to cross me,” he adds.
“I know that too.”
He leans back and stretches his arms behind his head while he considers me for a moment.
“Come here to me.”
His voice, not his words, draws me closer. He’s been blunt and indifferent to me from the moment we met, but right now he’s decidedly calm. I doubt there are many women who could refuse an order as far as Lachlan Crow is concerned in either case. I toss my stuff back onto the podium and walk down the stairs. Standing directly in front of him, I meet his gaze with a hint of challenge. His eyes narrow, and he points at the space between his legs.
“Closer.”
I take three small steps until I’m standing so close I can feel his body heat branding my barely covered flesh. He reaches up and grips me around the waist and tugs me into his lap like a frigging ragdoll. My annoyance is quickly snuffed out by the fact I can feel him throbbing for me beneath my ass. It stirs something within me. Something unfamiliar.
“I don’t want you up on that stage.” He brushes my hair back over my shoulders and gathers it in his fist. “I don’t fucking want ye here at all.”
My heartrate jacks at his words. Everything about this man scares me, even though I haven’t let onto it. I know this is how it works. The threats to keep me and the other girls in line. But it doesn’t just sound like an empty threat. Where a moment ago I thought I had him, now his hatred almost sounds real. Personal, even. When I speak, my voice is missing the usual snap to it.
“Why am I in your lap then?”
He draws my gaze to his with his fingers, and for a moment, neither one of us says a thing. Our eyes are locked, our breath stilted, and even I can feel Lachlan’s heart hammering against my back. He wants this. Badly. Even if he can’t admit it to himself.
I try to stand up, but he anchors me in place with hard fingers. If it were anybody else, he’d have an elbow to the face by now. But I need to keep my cool. Remain unaffected.
“I came here for a job,” I protest. “Not to be manhandled.”
He jerks my head to the side and his fingers drift to my throat again. “Are ye working with the cops?”
My face blanches at his accusation. “No.”
“So prove it,” he challenges.
I sigh. This is a test, of course. He wants to make me uncomfortable to see how I react.
“I’m not going to blow you just to get a job. I’m not that desperate.”
He arches a brow at me, all the while his fingers are burning into my skin. How can one man have so much heat radiating off him?
“Never said you were,” he replies.
“So then what do you want?” I demand.
“One kiss.”
A kiss? That one came out of left field.
“And that’s going to prove I’m not a cop… how exactly?”
“I have my methods.”
I can handle a kiss if that’s what it’s going to take. One kiss. It’s a slippery slope, I know, but I need this job. And there’s something about the curious look on his face that gives me a small thrill. He wants to see if I’ll go through with it. Like maybe he’s questioning something else about this weird chemistry between us.
“Okay,” I agree. “Whatever. One kiss. Have at it.”
His eyes darken as he leans into my space, but he doesn’t just go in for the kill. He takes his time, dragging it out. His lips brush over mine and then he captures my bottom lip between his teeth. A tug, and a slight bite of pain. I hiss and dig my fingers into his shoulders when I taste copper. He groans and licks it.
The sound of his pleasure and depravity jump starts my heart and explodes into my bloodstream. I’ve never felt anything like it before. Whatever it is, it’s ricocheting through my body, possessing me like a demon. My hands draw him closer, and the next thing I know, I’m kissing him back. Hard. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I don’t need to. My body knows what it craves.
My hands are in his hair, tugging, while his tongue forces its way into my mouth. I feel drunk, and it has nothing to do with the tequila. He’s just woken something that lived inside of me. Something I never knew existed. His hands are on me, tainting places that have never been touched before. Groping my tits, my waist, cupping my ass and grinding me down onto his erection. Oh God that feels good. Why does that feel so good? I completely underestimated the power of a chemical reaction. I can’t think straight anymore, and God help me, I actually want him right now.