Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“Stay on top of the bedding like you did the night you washed my hair.”
“I can’t…” My beaten ego gets a massive boost when he mutters under his breath, “I know how good you taste. I can’t do platonic.”
I could let his comment slide, but I won’t. It isn’t my style. “Says the guy who has kept me in the friend zone for years before kissing the living hell out of me to shut me up.”
“I…” He’s got nothing, not a single thing, so he once again resorts to shutting me up without words. “Get your ass under the sheets, Jessie. I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”
“Then…”
He demands me under the sheets with a stern glare before replying, “Then we will talk about this more in the morning.”
Happy he’s not planning to run, I do as asked. He waits for my head to hit the pillow before he strips down to a pair of boxer shorts, then he lays on top of the bedding as if a flimsy bit of cotton is more powerful than the bolt of electricity that forever surges between us.
The past few days seem like a minor hiccup when he rolls me onto my side, flattens his hand on my stomach, then guides me back until my body is cocooned by his. The sheet does little to hide his response to my closeness. Actually, it does nothing. I can feel every inch of him—every goddamn inch.
“Jessie…” Caleb grumbles under his breath, his tone as gruff as the grind I do against his crotch.
“I was just getting comfortable.”
I’m a liar, and he knows it, but instead of calling me out as a tattler, he lulls me to sleep by dragging his hand up and down my arm in sync to the rhythmic beat of his heart.
CHAPTER 42
CALEB
My eyes stray from the cracked-open door of Jess’s room to the chipped coffee table in her living room when Fitz says, “Fabien is clean. Priz ran him through the system twice.” My tight jaw tightens some more when he adds, “Maybe he’s just eager for some one-on-one time with your girl?”
“Jess isn’t my girl. She’s—”
“Merely the woman you got me to bid your life savings on for a lunch date? Right…”
He doesn’t believe me. I don’t blame him. I don’t believe myself. My kiss with Jess was meant to call her out as a liar, but all it did was prove I’ve been lying to myself for years.
I don’t see her father when I look at her.
I don’t even see him.
All I see is her, and it is getting harder and harder to deny that. I doubt I would have held back an hour ago if Jess wasn’t drunk. It took everything I had to pull back the reins, and I’m more shocked than anyone that I accomplished that.
For years, I’ve used what happened to me as an excuse for my wrongdoings, but it feels wrong with Jess. I guess that’s understandable when you learn she is the only person capable of making me forget what happened.
Drugs and alcohol blanketed my pain.
Jess erased it.
It might have only been for an hour or two, but it was enough to have me looking at a future instead of assuming I wouldn’t have one.
Fitz returns my thoughts to the present. “If you think the reports are wrong, I’ll have Morris run it again.”
“I don’t necessarily think it’s wrong. I just know he’s hiding something.” My cock has been desperate to sink into Jess for years, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever plow her with drinks to coerce her into my bed. Only men with issues do that.
Fabien has issues.
Fitz must feel the same way. “I’ll make some calls. See if I can find some unofficial reports.”
Even though he can’t see me, I issue my thanks without words. I smile.
“Things should be wrapped up here soon, so we’ll most likely head back your way. Do you need anything? Advil? Condoms? A tampon?”
After recalling how hard it was to get him to bid on Jess tonight—he didn’t want people to get the wrong idea—I’m tempted to ask him to stop by the drug store for unneeded supplies. Taking him out of his comfort zone may be the only way I can even the score between us. I don’t simply because I don’t want my ruse to backfire as badly as it did when I told Jess I was taking Keira to the gala as my date.
She wasn’t my date. Jack requested I accompany her after we discovered someone is trying to set Jess up.
I didn’t gift Jess the flowers she received yesterday morning, but their delivery made it obvious whoever is messing with her career wants to see her personal life stumble as well.
Although I have no proof, I’m confident the same person set her up to take the blame for the story Jack buried yesterday. The only thing that saved her from being buried beneath the rubble of its downfall was the fact she went to Jack Thursday afternoon with the information an ‘anonymous’ source gave her. She said his evidence was not factual, hurtful, and if Jack wanted Seattle Socialites to run a story like that, he’d need a new research assistant.