Total pages in book: 183
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
“If you’re never going to see me again, keep using me. Sex isn’t all I’m good for.”
“We weren’t supposed to get this personal.”
“I don’t even know your last name,” he says. “You don’t know mine. Let’s call it therapy. Quid pro quo. I’ll even go first.” He shoves his plate away. “Ask me anything.”
“I don’t want to play this game,” I say.
“Ask me anything,” he insists.
“How many women have been in this room?”
“None, not with me. My turn. How many one night stands have you had?”
“I already answered that,” I say. “None. Ever. Just you.”
“Why me?” he asks.
“No one else ever made me think I wanted to,” I say honestly, without hesitation. “My turn. Who burned you?”
His eyes narrow. “Who says I was burned?”
“You hate cheaters.”
“Good observation and accurate. My father fucked around on my mother and pretty much ruined her. I was engaged when I was right out of law school and she fucked my best friend. Now they’re married with three kids.”
I sink back onto the cushion, and pull my legs to my side, wondering if I dare ask what I want to ask. He leans into the cushion as well. “What do you want to know?” he asks.
I decide to dare. “Did you love her?”
“No,” he says easily. “I knew that even then, and so did she, but fucking around with my best friend—that was the wrong way to handle it.” He studies me a moment. “Your turn. Who burned you?”
“In the romance department? Me. For being stupid and probably young and infatuated.”
“An older man?”
“Yes,” I say. “And semi-famous, arrogant, and generally wrong for me, but I’m not heartbroken. I wasn’t in love either.” The muffled sound of my cell phone pings a text message. “My phone,” I say straightening. “I need my phone.” I jolt to my feet and round the coffee table to grab my bag, only to run smack into Cole, who’s apparently attempting to retrieve it for me. He catches my arms and gives me a mischievous look. “Always running into me.”
Heat radiates up and down my arms where he holds me, the awareness between us electric, the heat too fierce to have recently been sated. “I am, aren’t I?”
“Yes, sweetheart,” he says, his voice packing a low, rough quality, “you are, but I’m not complaining. I like it.”
He reaches down and scoops up my bag and sets it on the coffee table. “Thank you,” I say, and quickly dig my cell from my bag. I tab to the message and read the text from my mother: I have a surprise for your birthday! On shift, and I won’t tell anyway. Love you!
My birthday, which is only a week away and should have been celebrated with a law degree in my pocket and on my wall. “Something wrong?” Cole asks.
I glance up at him. “No,” I say, stuffing my phone in the pocket of the robe. “Nothing is wrong.”
He studies me, his eyes darkening, and suddenly, chilly. “You sure about that?”
He’s upset. He might even be angry. “What just happened?” I ask.
He doesn’t play those games he favors now. He’s direct. “That message,” he says. “Your urgency to check your phone. Are you married, Lori?”
I blanch, shocked, but quickly recover and his concern is not without merit. “No,” I breathe out. “No. God, no.” My hands find the hard wall of his chest. “I’m not that kind of person, Cole. I’m not a cheater.”
He doesn’t reach for me. He doesn’t touch me. “And yet you won’t tell me anything about yourself.” It’s a statement, not a question.
I yank my hand back. “It was my mother, who I worry about constantly since my father died, texting me about making me a cake, which is a big deal for reasons I won’t try to explain. I don’t even know why I told you that.” I suddenly feel trapped, and I didn’t even feel trapped when I was laying across his lap. “I should leave. Yes. I’ll leave.” I grab my bag, about to step away from him and he takes it from me, sets it on the table, and pulls me to him.
“Don’t go.”
“You just accused me—”
“I asked. You answered. I know lies when they’re spoken. I believe you. That I do just makes me want to fuck you all over again.”
“Cole—”
His fingers slide into my hair, his mouth slanting over mine, his tongue pressing past my lips. I tell myself not to respond. I tell myself this is the end of the road for this night, but he kisses me with passion, with possessive, hungry passion and he is big and wonderful, and he doesn’t taste of anger or accusation. He tastes of wine, pleasure, and everything right about this night.
“Do I taste like I want you to leave?” he asks again.
“You still taste like trouble, which is why if I had any sense, I would have left before now.”