Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 110694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
I opened my mouth to tell him a lie and haul her off to the car when she replied, “Fowah yeahs old!” She held up four tiny fingers.
When his eyes came back to me, he said nothing, but I could see it. The words he wasn’t saying. Would he ask? Would I tell him the truth? If I did, it would change Stevie’s world. Her safe bubble I kept her in. The life that was just within our grasp would crumble.
Please, God, don’t let him ask me if she is his.
Two
Linc
With my chosen figurado clamped between my teeth, I glared out over the front lawn of the house from my office window. That fucking blue car had long since driven away, yet the tension that had come with it hadn’t. Instead, it coiled tighter inside me, like a rattlesnake just before it struck. I should have kept her here. Demanded more information. If she wasn’t after money, did it mean that the marriage was real? Sure, I’d been messed up that night. But had I been that out of it?
The opium I’d had in the hookah pipe just before walking into one of the many clubs inside the casino that the family owned had been a poor decision, but I’d needed to release some stress. It had sent me to a place where I didn’t give a fuck about anything. The peace I had been searching for came so easily. Then, I saw her, and she took my breath away—literally—just like when I woke up in my suite with her beside me, naked in bed. The woman was possibly the most beautiful female I’d ever laid eyes on, and I’d fucked a lot of gorgeous women.
I let the cigar smoke linger in my mouth as I swirled it, enjoying the flavors. This specific cigar had become my comfort crutch. When I needed to take off the edge, this was what I reached for. Probably more often than I should.
Letting the smoke go with an exhale, I replayed all that I could remember from that night. Most of it was clear. So damn crystal clear in my mind that I’d used that face to get myself off more than a few dozen times over the years. She was still the most stunning creature I’d ever seen when she orgasmed. Thinking about the way she’d looked when she got off had my cock hardening in my jeans. Long blonde curls, the color of the finest champagne, sliding over her shoulders like warm caramel had been a sight that took the top spot on the mental highlight reel for best fucks of my life.
The fascination she’d held for me was the main reason I ran like hell the next morning. Because for the first time in my life, I had wanted to stay. I had wanted to fuck her more. Put her on my face and drown myself in that sweet, tight cunt.
Taking the cigar from my teeth, I glared at it for failing me. The stress wasn’t ebbing away. Only the storm of emotions that ranged from frustration to disbelief, to doubt, to full-blown fury.
Not because the number one memory from my spank bank had walked back into my life. And not because of the way her eyes had seemed to knock me on my ass. Hell, even the marriage certificate—if it was real—could be handled easily enough. It was the little girl I was struggling with. I hadn’t pressed because I was afraid of the truth. The what-if. She looked nothing like Levi had as a child, but then she was her mother’s mini me. There was just something…a gut feeling. A draw to her. As if my instincts were screaming at me that I should know her.
I had left her the morning-after pill. She would have fucking taken it. Right? I’d even put a bottle of water beside it. She wouldn’t have wanted to be knocked up with some one-night-stand’s kid. She hadn’t been on a manhunt that night. I’d hit on her. In fact, if I remembered correctly, she had been rejecting men or sending them running—until me.
But what if I had walked right into a trap? What if she’d been wanting a kid and the right sperm donor hadn’t come along yet? She hadn’t smoked opium, and I honestly didn’t know if she had been that drunk. The whole thing could have been premeditated.
Fuck.
If the little girl was mine, would she have brought her here? It’d been five years, and she was engaged. She wasn’t after me for anything. So, why would she have shoved the kid in my face if she had something to hide? That didn’t make sense. The timing added up though. Women had done worse things. This one wasn’t after my money, but she might have wanted my sperm.