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)
Without him distracting me, I could think about what we had done. What I’d let him do—and so easily.
Had it been mind-blowing? Yes. Had I been lost in the dark pleasure? Yes. Did I now feel good about it? I wasn’t sure.
The guilt of being engaged to Hudson wasn’t hanging over me, but I’d gotten used to being treated differently. Sure, Hudson hadn’t given me orgasms, but he had kissed me. Not one time had Linc kissed me—on the mouth at least. He kissed me other places, if it could be considered that. It was more licking and sucking things that he had done with his magical tongue.
The click of the door as he left the room left a cold presence drifting over me. Had I just been a booty call? He had needed sex and used me for it. Wouldn’t he have kissed me if it had been more? And, God, why did I want more?
Groaning, I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling.
That stupid fantasy of Linc being mine was still there, manipulating me. Thirty-two years of this man being in my head, haunting my dreams, and after all he’d done, here I was. He snapped his fingers, and I came running. I had to stop this. Get control of myself, but how? I knew good and well that if he walked back into this room tomorrow night, it would take him a few words, some intimate touches, that freaking face of his, and I’d be opening my legs once again.
It would never be enough! I’d always want more. I’d want him. His heart. I would want him to kiss me, not make me feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Now, that outcome I would take, but the other…I wasn’t his paid live-in whore. Although tonight, that was exactly what I’d acted like. He’d called me his cockslut, and I’d gotten off on it. Ugh! He made me twisted.
Either the man was always virile and hard to sate or there was something more to it. Because tonight and in Vegas, he couldn’t stop fucking me. It was as if he couldn’t get his fill, and I wasn’t so sure that if I hadn’t been so spent and closed my eyes, he wouldn’t have taken me again tonight.
Hudson was ten years younger than him, and after he got off, that was it for the night. He wasn’t getting it back up again. The past few months, he’d made jokes about getting old and it being harder on men to do that every day. Their testosterone or something wasn’t what it used to be. Linc had disproven that theory.
Hudson had made me feel secure and comfortable. Linc made me feel wild and alive, but only when he was stripping me down and taking me to levels of pleasure I hadn’t known existed. Otherwise, he was…infuriating, controlling, demanding. Except with Stevie. He treated her in a way he never treated anyone else—that I had witnessed at least. He loved her. That was the difference.
Me…well, he had to make a space for me in his life because he loved her. I had to suffer through the turmoil he was going to put me through emotionally because I loved her. I could and would do anything for my daughter, I just didn’t know if my soul would survive this. Not that I had a choice. Linc had given me no choice. Not really. Hating him for it was impossible when I watched Stevie with him. I was only reminded that my decision five years ago had been the wrong one. Simply because my heart had been hurt.
I’d lied to myself, saying that I didn’t want the life the Linc lived near her. But if he had wanted me, if he hadn’t left that letter, if he’d been there the next morning, or even if he hadn’t been having an orgy when I came to tell him the first time, I would have let him be in her life. That was the first lie I’d told myself. The second lie was that I had been protecting her from it. Yet…my dad had allowed me to live in it, and those were the happiest memories I had of my childhood.
The truth was mine to accept. I’d made decisions that affected both of them based on my emotions and the hurt that Linc had inflicted on me.
This time, I had the chance to do the right thing. Not think about me.
The kitchen was full this morning, and as I stood there, unnoticed, and took it all in, the only things that made my heart warm was the sight of Stevie’s big smile and the sound of her laughter as Linc constructed a face on her pancakes with a bowl of berries. My reminder of why I could survive Linc Shephard. God knew I’d needed one this morning.