Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“What?”
“A proposition,” I repeated. “And you’ll hear me out before you interrupt with complaints and resistance. Understand?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“You will in a moment.” I ran my thumbs back and forth, creating light pressure, warming her cool skin. “I bought your studio.”
She jerked against my grip, tried backing away. I held her fast. “You did—you—are you—–?”
“Relax.”
“Relax? You buy my studio and what? You came here to gloat? It wasn’t enough that I was uncomfortable about you working with strippers, now you’re going to take the dream I had and crush it further?”
“Riley,” I said.
But she was on a roll now. “I told you I wasn’t comfortable with it becoming a club. I don’t care if it’s classy like Club Queen. I told you! Yeah, I know I don’t own it anymore, but I—fuck, I—I can’t believe you’d do this and come tell me about it.”
“Riley.”
“Is this your payback? You couldn’t make me into your possession, so you took the studio and made it yours instead?” She banged her fists into my chest. “Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are?!” The pressure of that banging increased, but the woman was tiny. She couldn’t possibly hurt me. “You asshole!” Tiny and angry. “You seeping wound of a human being.” OK, furious.
“Riley!”
But she’d already dissolved into tears. She beat against my chest, writhed in my grip, scuffled her feet, and stepped on my shoes. She wouldn’t hold still, and nothing I said now could calm her down.
I tightened my grasp on her, brought her closer to my chest, then brought my lips down on hers.
She stiffened underneath me, sucked air in through her nose.
I parted her lips and tasted her. She nipped my tongue. A moan wormed up her throat, gave away the game. She quit beating her fists against me, slung her arms around my neck instead, and kissed me back.
Riley’s tongue tangled with mine. She massaged and tasted, probed as deep as I did, wet and warm and everything I’d craved for the two weeks since I’d made the decision to buy the damn place.
She took hold of the lapels of my jacket and tugged on it.
This woman needed me as much as I needed her. She’d never admit it to herself, she was just as stubborn as I was, and she didn’t have a Bane to whip some sense into her. Fuck, what I’d give to pin her against the front door of this ramshackle house and fuck her with her leg over my shoulder.
I pushed her back a step, pressed her to the wall, and deepened the kiss. Gripped her right leg and lifted it, wrapped it around my hips. I ground my cock into her pussy, hot through the silk of those shorts.
Riley moaned against my lips, ran her hands down the front of my shirt, and tugged on my belt buckle, worked it back and forth, desperate for me as she’d been two weeks ago.
My woman. My Riley.
Stop, asshole. You’re ruining it all. You’re fucking it up again.
I released her and stepped back, swiftly.
She swayed on the spot, blinking up at me, her gaze hooded. She touched her wet lips, pressed two fingers to them and exhaled. “Why are you here?” she whispered, voice trembling. “Did you come to mess my head around again?”
“No,” I said. “You didn’t let me finish. I had to shut you up somehow.”
“Such a romantic,” she hissed.
“I’m not here to be romantic, I’m here to tell you something, Riley, and if you’ll calm down for a second, I’ll let you in on the fucking secret. How’s about that?”
She chewed on her bottom lip but didn’t turn around and retreat into the house. That had to be a good sign. “Spill it, King.”
“I love it when you call me by my rightful title,” I quipped, just to lighten the mood. “I bought the studio, and not because I want to turn it into a strip club or a restaurant. I bought it for you.”
“You what?”
“I bought it for you.” I let that sink in for a second.
“I—you—” She did that supersonic, lost-in-translation babble she’d perfected over the course of our relationship. Not that she’d ever admit it’d been a relationship. The suggestion would probably make her head pop off and levitate. “You—I—I can’t believe—why?” Her eyelids fluttered. “Are you insane? You can’t just leave it alone, can you? You have to put your oar in the water.”
“My dick in the pot,” I corrected. “And that’s not what this is. I bought it so you can run it. You can make the money you’ve always wanted to, maybe even expand, and then buy me out later on.”
He jaw dropped. A flicker of hope passed through her but was just as quickly extinguished. “That’s generous, I guess, but it just wouldn’t be right. I already failed once at running the place. I don’t want to bring anyone else down with me. I—Now would be a good time for me to get a steady job with a steady paycheck. No risks. I’m done with risks.” She said that last sentence pointedly, and dragged the back of her hand across her mouth.