Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 124140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
“Who the fuck is Roger?”
She startled. Shoot.
Had she really said that out loud? Idiot.
“No one,” she whispered. “I want to go home. Can I go home now?”
“No.”
“No?” Did he want her to go back to work? What the heck? She’d drop the first plate she picked up.
This wasn’t her. She was a badass bitch. She couldn’t afford to fall apart.
“No,” he repeated.
“Why can’t I go home?”
“Because you are coming with me.”
8
This was a stupid idea.
As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew how stupid it was. He should just let her go home. Put her in an Uber and send her on her way.
Forget about her.
He shouldn’t be feeling this damn possessive of a woman he barely knew, who he couldn’t afford to know.
Yet . . . here he was, wanting to squeeze the life out of Vince until he knew he was no longer a threat to her.
Wanting to know who the fuck Roger was and what he meant to her. Well, he wouldn’t mean much to her for long.
Alejandro would see to that.
Fuck. Whether she had a boyfriend or not wasn’t his business.
He should back off. She wasn’t his.
But while he knew she couldn’t be his, he didn’t want her to be anyone else’s either.
This is why he didn’t get involved with women anymore. Fuck them, yes. But anything more was messy.
“With you?” she asked.
“Yes. Let’s go. We can’t stay out here. I have things to do.”
Joder. He really should find something softer to say to her. Once upon a time, he’d had empathy for others, he’d known how to treat a woman gently.
But that was a long time ago, and now he was a bastard without feelings.
He reached for her and she drew away.
Anger exploded. And he breathed through it.
She’d just been attacked. He still didn’t know what that fucker had done to her exactly. She could be hurt.
“Every time you shy away from me makes me angrier.”
“At me?”
He flinched as though she’d just slapped him. “Fuck, no. I don’t victim blame. At him. I’m going to make him suffer for this.”
“Why? Why do you care?” she whispered in a broken voice.
“I told you last time, Pequeña. You belong to me.”
And if she really belonged to you, wouldn’t you be protecting her?
“Do I? I’ve seen you once since the poker night. And you looked straight through me.”
Ahh, if only she knew how much he’d thought about her, obsessed over her, and gotten hard for her. He wasn’t a teenager anymore, needing to jack off every five minutes.
But because of her, it had been close.
And for some reason, the thought of having another woman near his dick was repugnant. This girl was a witch. She’d worked some sort of magic over him.
He didn’t need her to realize how much she’d tied him up in knots.
“Just because you don’t see me doesn’t mean I’m not around.”
“That sounds like something a stalker would say.”
That wasn’t far off the mark. He’d thought about following her, tracking her phone. About checking her employee details to see where she lived and putting cameras in her apartment.
However, he hadn’t done any of those things. Because that would display a loss of control. It would show a level of possession he refused to feel.
And how is that hold on your control going for you right now?
“A stalker?” he asked.
“Or a cheesy villain.”
“A cheesy villain?” he snapped. “Cheesy. Villain.”
“Yeah, like Gargamel in the Smurfs.”
“You are likening me to Gargamel? The man with the hunched back and bald head and enormous nose?”
“Relax, Romeo. I didn’t say you looked like him. Just that you’re ah, um . . .”
“A cheesy villain? I do not think I have ever been so insulted.”
“I’m sure you have been,” she replied.
“What?”
“Just no one ever said it to your face. Probably behind your back. Or in their heads.”
Oh, this girl was so much trouble. She needed a spanking. Desperately.
He made a low noise of discontent.
“You know what . . . I feel a lot better after this chat. Thanks.”
She felt better? What the fuck?
“You feel better? After calling me Gargamel?”
“Again, I didn’t call you Gargamel, I likened you to him.”
“Not any better, Pequeña.”
“Anyway, I don’t think I need to go with you. I’ll be fine to go home on my own.”
“Nice try,” he drawled. “But you’re coming with me.”
“I’m not.”
He narrowed his gaze. “I don’t argue. And I always get what I want. You will come home with me. End of story.”
She muttered something under her breath.
“Did you . . . just call me a stubborn goat?” In his life no one had ever dared . . . and this slip of a girl thought she could get away with it?
He swore if she hadn’t just been terrorized and assaulted, she would be over his knee right now.
“I’m sure I didn’t.”
He grasped hold of her chin. “Careful that you do not bite off more than you can chew. I am not a kind man. Nor am I one you want to cross. I do not harm women like Vince, but that doesn’t mean I won’t punish you if you deserve it.”