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)
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I found out that I didn’t know what was going on in her life. There was a side of my mother I didn’t understand, but I should have.”
“Like me and my father, it seems.”
“I don’t think so,” I say, wanting to avoid her father at all costs and that cost is me making confessions I never make. “I idolized my father. I chose to be blind to my mother’s pain because he created it.”
“I’m not sure if I should ask what that means.”
“My mother wrote my sister a letter that detailed her miserable life with my father. He cheated often, with many, and treated her like shit. I had no idea. I knew he was a bastard in the boardroom, so to speak, but I thought she was the person that kept him human. I was wrong.” I meet her stare. “My mother also wrote of her fears that I was so close to him that I would become him.”
“But you’re not,” she says. “You know that, right?”
“Says the woman who is always calling me an asshole.”
“You are an asshole,” she says. “But we both know that’s a choice, or rather a persona. I don’t believe you’re him. Not the way you describe him. Not from what I know of you.”
To allow her to believe that I’m not that asshole she’s called me would be a selfish mistake. That’s how she gets hurt. That “persona” as she calls it, is what keeps people at a distance, it’s how I keep from actually getting close enough to anyone to hurt them the way he hurts people. And yet, what do I do? I reach for her and pull her closer. “I don’t talk about my family, Carrie. I don’t bring women to my apartment. I have never brought anyone to this room.”
Shock flickers over her face. “Then why am I here, Reid?”
I drag her onto my lap. “Because I want you here. Because I can’t seem to stop breaking my own fucking rules with you.”
Her hands plant on my shoulders. “And you’re mad at me again? You’re blaming me.”
“Yes. Stop making me break my rules.” I cup her head and kiss her, my tongue pressing past her lips, stroking us both into a needier place, where rules don’t matter.
She moans and sinks into the kiss, and damn it, I love those moans, I’m addicted to those moans. I’m addicted to this woman, and all my good intentions to sate that addiction, fail. I pull my T-shirt over her head and toss it, and my gaze raking over her breasts, her nipples puckering under the inspection. My hand slides between her shoulder blades, and I mold her close. “This is definitely your fault.”
“Is this where you decide to kick me out again?”
“No,” I say. “This is where we fuck.” I drag her mouth to mine, and kiss her, telling myself that fucking is all this can be, reminding myself of the debt and the secret I legally cannot share. The secret that she’d never stay silent over if she knew.
I tell myself to get lost in the taste of her, defiant and yet submissive at the same time, in that way that defines this woman. I tell myself to just enjoy the moment, and I do. I waste no time getting naked and pulling her down the throbbing length of my cock. I waste no time driving into her. I waste no time getting lost in her touch, her kisses, her moans. And later, much later, when I’ve laid us down and pulled her next to me on the couch, I hold her, listening to her breathing slow and even out. I’m acutely aware that she is a woman caught in the middle of a debt that has to be paid, destined to hate me. It’s why this has to stay just sex. It’s why no matter how deep I go with her, I cannot get too close.
Chapter twenty-eight
Carrie
“Carrie.”
I blink to the sound of my name and an awareness of Reid behind me washes over me, his big body wrapped around mine, his lips at my ear. “You awake, baby?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“Not even close,” he says, nuzzling my neck, his lips near my ear as he softly orders, “Look out the window.”
I blink again and bring the window into view, my lips parting with the sight of a golden sunrise lifting the darkness from the sky. “It’s beautiful,” I murmur.
“How’s that for your awkward morning after?” he asks, his hand flattening on my belly.
“It depends on what comes next,” I say, rolling over to face him, my hand settling on his jaw, the dark blond of morning stubble rasping my palm. “We kind of blew your plans to stay up all night. We never made it off the couch.”