Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
I’d needed to fuck, and Cressida knew the rules. No calling, texting, or clinginess. Just fucking. However, I got caught up in a poker game with her brother and his friends in his apartment over the restaurant. She and I didn’t leave for her place until after midnight. I’d not gotten back here until three in the morning.
Capri hadn’t liked it. A grin tugged at the corner of my lips as I took a long pull from my cigarette.
You don’t need to play that game, little doll. It’s not smart to stir the dark shit inside me.
Her footsteps were so damn soft that I’d have missed them if I didn’t find myself so familiar with her every move. Taking a drink, I waited for her to approach me. She’d made her point today. Now, she could be the first one to speak. I rattled her, and I knew it. But fuck if I was gonna make it easy on her when she’d picked my brother over me. There was a price to pay for that.
She cleared her throat, and I had to pull in a smoke to keep from grinning.
Nervous to face me now, aren’t you, little doll?
I didn’t turn around to look at her.
“I, um, I’m back.” She stammered over her words.
“Yeah,” I agreed, then took a drink from my glass, keeping my gaze straight ahead.
Silence. I loved it, but I knew it made others nervous. It was making her question my mood. If I was angry. That was the point. She’d made a decision; now, she could deal with the consequences.
“The Big A is really nice,” she said nervously.
I took the cigarette from my lips. “You have low expectations.”
The sound of her shifting her feet was cute. Let her squirm.
“I, uh, guess compared to Churchill Downs, it pales in comparison.”
That it did. I said nothing. Seconds ticked by, and I was growing more amused with each one that passed.
“Well, I … okay, I just wanted to let you know I was back,” she said.
I took the last pull from my cigarette, then put it out in the ashtray beside me. “You did.”
It was difficult not to look at her. Check and make sure she was truly okay. I would do that later when she slept. For now, she needed to be punished.
Her footsteps faded as she walked back inside—I assumed to her room. She’d need dinner. I’d order that for her before I left for the evening. I hadn’t decided if I was going to go to Cressida or just join her brother for a few more hands of cards. I considered a movie. Something I could do alone.
I reached for my phone and sent a text to the concierge, letting them know exactly what to have brought up to the room for her dinner. There was a limit to the punishment I could give her. The part of me that wanted to protect her was stronger than the cruelty that always seemed to be the majority of what my soul had been forged from.
Perhaps a movie with Cressida. Something with nudity and sex. She could suck my cock while I watched. That sounded moderately appealing. In the dark, I could allow my imagination its free rein. The mouth I sank my dick into would belong on another face. A sweet one with very little makeup with big lips and pretty doe eyes. Fuck. I was getting hard. Had to stop thinking about her like that. I’d shatter her if I touched her, and I wouldn’t allow a soul to harm her. Even me.
“And they’re into the stretch! Bloodline is moving on the outside. Taze is coming up to the neck of Gold Strike and Bloodline! And Bloodline takes the lead as they come to the final furlong. Gold Strike is moving up into second, and Taze is falling back while Bilthard takes third. Bloodline shoots out ahead with a three-length lead! Bloodline is getting away! And then it’s Gold Strike and Bilthard and Long Stride, and Bloodline has a six-length lead! It is Bloodline to win the Belmont Derby Invitational! Under Capri Jewel, who picks up her first win at the Belmont here at The Big A.”
• Sixteen •
“You’ll have to get more creative, little doll.”
Capri
The whirlwind of excitement, adrenaline, and photos all seemed to sink in as I sat in the back of the limo that was taking Thatcher and me back to the hotel. The energy that had been pumping through me was now slowly escaping, and I began to feel the fatigue. Which was a good thing with the silence that had been going on with Thatcher and me since Thursday. I’d only seen him a handful of times and for brief moments. He hadn’t spoken to me, except when it was at the track and only about Bloodline.