Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 147415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 737(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 491(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 737(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 491(@300wpm)
She sighs, long and deep, and when I pull her into me, she doesn’t fight.
Even though this is on the heels of one of the best orgasms of my life, there’s something melancholy about the afterglow.
A tinge of sadness that started the second she looked away.
If this wasn’t the last time, it’s coming in the next few hours.
The very real curtain call.
A happy fluke, I guess, that she came to my house and this happened again. But we both know this can’t continue.
After tonight, it’s over and done.
If only that didn’t make it far too real.
The melancholy lingers like poison after a sting.
She’s still in my arms, breathing gently across my chest.
Still, there’s a blue aura I can feel, sadness creeping in.
I just don’t know how to mention it.
Some shit, I can handle without breaking a sweat.
Business, character assassinations, former associates of Uncle Aidan’s outfit who would’ve loved to slash my throat with piano wire if I wasn’t so high profile...
I’ve built my new life around my career, and it’s no exaggeration to say I know what I’m doing.
But this, this is uncharted territory.
I’ve never been one of those touchy-feely guys. The men who talk about their feelings without it getting weird.
In the life I’ve lived, feelings are something you hide, an annoying vulnerability that shouldn’t exist at all.
Hell, even just understanding this feels harder than learning Coptic Greek.
I’d rather talk facts and figures.
Give me numbers, graphs, figures organized into a spreadsheet.
Data doesn’t lie, assuming it’s not manipulated.
People, as numbers and assets and liabilities, make sense to me.
They have a function and either they do it or they don’t.
If they don’t, they get one chance to fix it before they can fuck right off and stop troubling me.
Mostly, I’m barely in charge of that day-to-day minutiae anymore when I handle the big picture.
Shareholders, expansions, and reputations to keep.
This doesn’t feel small, though.
It’s about the size of Everest, all squeezed into this room.
Destiny, with her eyes shut and her breath steady and her hands balled slightly. This is like waiting for a time bomb to detonate.
Mainly, the fact that she’s pulling away.
Walls have gone up around her, despite the fact that we’re still naked.
I don’t know how to reach her.
Not that we were ever close to have that connection.
This was just sex.
A lie I tell myself a thousand times and it still doesn’t sink in.
No, fuck this distance.
The feeling is like an itch under a cast, right there on the surface but impossible to scratch.
I’m uncomfortable. Antsy.
Not at all what I’m used to, and all thanks to another human being.
Where the hell is my cynicism now?
How the mighty have fallen.
I can’t actually be interested in keeping this madness going... can I?
And for me to be interested first? Before she breaks down in tears, begging me to stay?
Goddamn, that’s infuriating.
I’m losing my touch.
No wonder she can turn herself off like a switch. It must be tough, being physically attracted to someone you’re not emotionally interested in.
After all, we don’t have much in common besides philanthropy and an appreciation for nature.
That’s not enough to make a young girl like her fall for a mature bonehead like me. I’m twice her age, for fuck’s sake.
I’m not down with the easy, casual sex young people in her generation enjoy, either.
Just look at my possessiveness when she said she’d never been with a guy when Molly was around.
The jealous way I wanted her to look at me.
I craved a connection, and she didn’t.
Simple as.
I tried like hell to keep it casual, but clearly I missed the mark.
Because clearly this means more to me than it does to her.
She’s from the same world of money that gets old fast, where life is materialistic and heavily performative in the public eye.
I can’t stand it.
Privacy is everything, and she doesn’t get that.
I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to shut the world out.
She’s spent hers putting herself front and center for a cause.
Sure, she has her secrets, but that won’t be true forever.
When she gets with a guy—the lucky future dickhead who’s meant to stick around, and I hate him already—he’ll just pop up in her pictures and videos with the same natural ease as her husky.
Also, I’ve got about ten thousand reasons for distrusting women.
I can’t afford to get emotionally invested now, especially not in the girl who’s already made my name mud through no fault of her own.
“Hey.” Destiny glances up at me, her hand splayed across my chest, eyes wide and searching. “You’re like a rock. So tense.”
“Am I? Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” Her breath is cool as she blows it out, long and slow. “I wasn’t saying it to make you feel bad. I just want to know what you’re thinking about.”
Damn good question.
What am I thinking?
Right now, mostly how foreign it is that anyone wants to know what’s inside my head outside of a professional setting. Having anyone scooping out my thoughts like the flesh from a coconut doesn’t feel appealing.