Total pages in book: 224
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
He drags me close again and sets us in motion, waving to the security guard as we head toward the elevators. Some part of me knows this night will change us, and I don’t know if that is good or bad. Just that it will, but I can’t stop it. It’s in motion. It’s already happening. Maybe it happened back there with Elijah. Whatever the case, we’ve been headed here from the moment we met. Reid punches the elevator button and the doors open. Butterflies attack my stomach and in a quick maneuver, Reid has me against the wall of the elevator car, his powerful thighs caging mine, even as he punches in a code on the panel, followed by his floor number.
The doors seal us inside and his hands come down on my waist as he stares down at me, just stares. “Did you listen to the messages?”
“Yes.”
I study him for several beats. “It changes nothing,” I say, reading it in his face.
“That’s right. I was, and am, going to fuck you ten ways to Sunday in my apartment.”
“Because that’s what you do. Fuck your enemies?”
The elevator dings and halts, and he has my hand again, leading me out of the car. I don’t even know what floor we’re on. I just know that I’m about to be in this man’s private space, and I’m curious about what it tells me about Reid, about the man beneath the stone.
He pulls me between him and the door, his big body hot and hard behind me. He unlocks the door, opening it and presenting me with the entry. I cross the threshold, a light automatically dimming and before I can do more than walk a step or two, he’s behind me, turning me to face him, pressing me against the door. “Because,” he says, his legs caging mine once more, his hands on the wall by my head, “getting back to your question in the elevator, I can’t stop thinking about fucking you and that’s a distraction neither of us can afford. It’s s distraction that’s in my head when it can’t be in my head. You’re in my fucking head.”
He says it like he’s angry. Like it’s my fault. He’s blaming me for whatever sins he’s decided I created. “You’re consuming my whole damn world,” I all but growl at him. “Everything I am. No one can claim that, but you. And I didn’t even invite you to do it.”
“And so you tried to take control yourself tonight.”
“No, damn it. I called you. I thought I could find out the information you needed to know. That we needed to know. And Elijah implied he knew what everyone seems to know about my father but me.”
“You have plenty of reasons to betray me. Reasons I can’t ignore.”
“I also have reasons not to,” I remind him.
“What reasons, Carrie?”
I’m in over my head, I think. I need you, I think, but I don’t say those words. They make me weak. I can’t be weak. Emotions I don’t want to feel well up in my chest. Emotions that are more personal than professional. “Because you saved me. And because…”
“Because what?” he presses.
“I really don’t want to be your enemy, Reid. Can we just not be enemies?”
He looks skyward, seeming to struggle with what comes next, or maybe something he knows that I don’t know, and there is something before he fixes me in a turbulent stare. “I cannot do this with you. I fuck. I move on. That is what I do.”
“Did I ask you to do anything else? Did I? No. No, I did not. I don’t want a relationship and I don’t know where you get off acting like I do. I’m not that girl. So fuck me or let me off this damn door and out of here.” I press on the hard wall of his chest, and his heart thunders under my palm.
He’s stone, he’s always stone. I’m suffocating in this man. In how he looks. How he smells. How much I want him. How much I keep hating him and not hating him. “You’re not going anywhere,” he promises. “Not until we fuck this out of our systems, so don’t plan on sleeping.” He rotates me, forcing me to move, and now I’m in front of him, facing the door and he’s dragging my jacket off my shoulders. It’s barely off and he’s pressing me to the door again, forcing me to catch myself with my hands, working my skirt down my hips. I yelp as he yanks the panties. “You could have at least shown me your apartment before you destroyed my panties.”
He turns me to face him, me against the door. One of his hands is at my hip and the other next to my head. “You want to see my apartment?”