Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 147733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
“But last time, when you ambushed me on the street... That was about Bee Harbor. You were afraid she’d buy it, or I’d find a way around this stupid rule giving you first dibs.”
With a low sound that’s more animalistic frustration than sigh, he steps around his desk, moving closer, cornering me.
“Goddammit, Jenn, that had nothing to do with your land and everything to do with the woman trying to sink her claws into it. If you won’t believe me, I’ll sign an amendment waiving my option on Bee Harbor now. I don’t care if you sell it to Paul fucking Bunyan the handyman for a dollar or even the fucking tooth fairy. That’s not what this is about anymore. I just can’t have you selling to her.”
I’m so blindsided it takes real effort to find words.
“No? I just... I don’t understand. If you’re not hellbent on buying it, what’s the problem? What are you keeping from me—or keeping me from?”
He stalks closer like the panther he is, his massive shoulders squared and his eyes riveted to me.
I swallow thickly.
He’s so tall, so broad, a boulder chiseled into manly elegance.
Something about the feral way he watches me brings me back to that messy, soul-branding kiss.
But that’s not what this is.
That’s not what I should care about.
That’s not what I’m aching for in my core, hollow and pleading, asking him with everything but words to let me feel him just one more time.
What the frick is wrong with me?
“Miles? What is this about?”
“You,” he answers. His steely eyes soften, and so does his voice. The tender edge leaves me bristling. “What else could it ever be about, Jenn? I still can’t get that kiss out of my head—and woman, I’ve tried.”
I’m floating.
On the verge of leaving my body.
My tongue skims my lips, which suddenly feel so parched. “The kiss you ran away from like it was poison, you mean? The one you never mentioned again?”
His eyes sharpen, turning back into razors.
“The kiss I dream about every damn night? The kiss that keeps invading my head every damn hour, leaving me so brainless I can barely function?” With his teeth bared, he closes in, stopping with his lips just inches from mine. “The kiss I’ve stroked myself off to twenty times this past week, every orgasm coming like a fever, so impossible to break I can’t even breathe?”
Oh God Oh God Oh God.
My lungs won’t work.
“Yeah, kitten. I remember that kiss,” he whispers. “It’s hardwired into my head so deeply I’ll take that shit to my grave.” His words fall against my mouth in hot waves. “For the record, I tried to apologize.”
“Y-yeah. And maybe I just didn’t want an apology,” I whisper.
I didn’t want that kiss to end, especially not the way it did.
“I owed you one. It was inappropriate as hell and you work for me. I just don’t regret that it happened—even if we weren’t alone. I regret that I tore myself away.”
“I still work with you, Miles—” I swallow harshly.
“And now we’re alone and I still want to taste you.”
He’s. Killing. Me.
Especially when he closes his eyes and releases a slow breath so hot it burns my skin.
“Aren’t you tired of this song and dance, kitten? This lie? I can’t keep away from you. The jaws of life couldn’t pry these thoughts out of my head, everything I’m aching to do to you. Simone may have brought me back to Seattle—but you’re the real reason. I had to see you again.”
My toes scrunch in my shoes and my knees work overtime to hold me up.
“Big words for a big man who only has one real passion.” I nod at the paintings hanging over his desk.
His eyes move in the direction of my nod.
“Yeah, and you’re the reason I can’t even do that anymore. If I’m the scary, single-minded asshole you think I am—I’ve made my choice, Jenn. I choose this.”
I’m so completely gone as he bends, his breath more teasing than ever. My head dips back as my body tilts toward him with this wild magnetism I still can’t comprehend.
But it rules me.
It makes me his prisoner.
Before I can mewl out another word of protest, he’s reaching for my glasses, jerking them off my nose, and staring straight into my eyes.
“I like this better, kitten. Nothing in the way,” he whispers.
For a split second, I shudder, right down to my toes.
Then his lips bury me alive.
He clasps my waist, pulling me closer, ravishing me.
He’s all man, this brazen bull, backing me against the wall.
The next time I breathe, I’m trapped between the surface and muscle I can’t resist digging my fingers into.
I hold on so tight as he robs the air from my lungs.
As he burns me down with lust.
As he turns me into trembling ash.
As each growling kiss makes me delirious.