Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
She does it for me, that noise. I growl with delight.
“You can’t,” she says, shaking her head as my lips brush hers.
“You’re not going to kill Malcolm. You’re going to find something that will hurt him. Something that will damage his reputation and make our deal fall through. You won’t murder the man, but you’ll destroy him all the same. I know Malcolm, and there are a dozen skeletons in his closet. All you have to do is find one and release it.”
She stares into my eyes. There’s fear in that stare, but there’s also lust, yes, there’s excitement and desire beneath that uncertainty. She afraid in the same way I am: terrified she’ll tumble deeper into this physical attraction. This isn’t safe, far from it, and maybe that’s why it feels so good.
“I know exactly what I want to use against him.” Her voice comes out a raspy whisper. Her eyes burn with excitement and my heart’s racing as adrenaline fills my body.
“Tell me.”
“He got my mother fired from her job as a postal clerk. He bribed her supervisor, hell, he probably bribed everyone in that entire damn post office branch, and he got her kicked out. He got her benefits stripped. Her pension destroyed. But he didn’t stop there. He got her kicked out of her apartment, the home we’d had until I was five years old, and nothing was the same after that.” Her jaw’s set, her chin raised. “He destroyed my mother’s life. He made my world a living hell. And I want to prove it.”
My mouth opens and I can’t stop the surprise I feel echoing through my chest.
I knew she had a connection with Malcolm—I understood she believed that bastard ruined her mother already—but I didn’t realize she had a specific allegation. And not a small one, either. Bribing a federal official, even if he’s a low-level nobody in a post office, that’s an enormous deal. That’s jail time and scandal, at the very least.
If this gets out, if she can prove what she’s saying, it might very well drive Malcolm from this city for good.
If she can prove it.
But she’s still hiding something from me. That much is obvious. My mind rings with a dozen questions, chief among them being, why would Malcolm go to such great lengths to ruin the life of a random woman? Why did he hate her so much?
I remain inches from her, body pulsing with want. This is dangerous, an escalation in our relationship. I keep my mouth shut and force the questions away. I can’t press, not right now. I brush my lips against her throat, breathing her smell deep, wanting her so badly it hurts. I want to pretend like it’s a surprise, but it’s not, at least not to me. This has been growing inside my core for days and days and finally, I can’t help it.
Inviting her over for dinner was foolish. It was a goddamn pretext to doing this.
And I shouldn’t be doing this.
“We’ll find your proof,” I say finally, quietly, my voice husky with pure want.
“You make it sound easy.”
“Nothing worth doing is easy, princess.”
“Did you read that on a Hallmark card?”
I smirk and shake my head. “My father used to say it.”
“What is with you and your family? Why are you all so infuriating?”
“I’m infuriating because you want to fuck me. I can’t speak for the others.”
Her mouth opens in denial.
But I cut her off by pressing my lips against hers and stifling her protest.
Chapter 17
Gavino
I kiss her slow at first. She whimpers—again, god fucking hell, it’s heaven, that sound—and I drink in her tongue and teeth and lips. The kiss heightens, deepens, and she wraps herself against me. I grip her ass, thick and lovely, and squeeze tight, digging my fingers in and gripping hard. I bite her, kiss her throat, her neck, and I want to take her right now—I want to drive myself between her legs and fuck her senseless. I want to leave her quivering and screaming my name and gasping for breath.
And that’s the last thing I should do. I know it, deep down. If I were remotely smart, I’d step back.
But I’m not a smart man, not when it comes to her.
I pull her from the wall and drag her to the couch. She moans when I pull off her shirt and kiss her chest. I remove her bra and cup her breasts, grunting with utter delight at the sight of her perfect, pink nipples. I kiss those nipples, lick and suck them, and bury my mouth against hers.
She grinds her hips. We’re both out of breath, both panting. Her moans are deeper now, needy. Dinner is forgotten. Our discussion about Malcolm is forgotten. I don’t even know why I brought her here, except for this.