Total pages in book: 26
Estimated words: 24912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 125(@200wpm)___ 100(@250wpm)___ 83(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 24912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 125(@200wpm)___ 100(@250wpm)___ 83(@300wpm)
My blood is boiling and my heart is pounding as I watch her step out of the shop and lock up. My testosterone is coursing through me as I follow her every move as she walks down the street to where she parked.
I’m aroused, but I’m also on edge. Layla’s relationship to a cartel leader means she’s potentially a target for kidnappers, so while I’ve technically been stalking her for almost a month now, I’ve also been protecting her. A secret bodyguard watching over her from the shadows, making sure nothing happens to her.
The pressure in my jeans is too much, so I pop the buttons and pull out my hard-on and begin stroking it. The sensation is so intense I have to back off immediately. No woman has ever had this effect on me. Next year I’ll be thirty, but I feel like an oversexed teen when she’s around.
I manage to drive one-handed as I follow her back to her apartment. I feel literal pain throughout every nerve in my body as I maintain the standard two-car distance from her so as to not be spotted. But God, if I’m not dying. All I want to do is be close to her. I’m white-knuckling the wheel and chewing the inside of my cheek as I drive. I feel like there’s a gaping wound in my chest that can only be healed by being near her–by having her beauty fill my eyes.
Thankfully, we reach her place before I break down. I park in the shadows across the street and twist my palm up and down my shaft as I watch her emerge from her car, purse in hand, and make her way to the front door of her building. Then I am forced to suffer the minute-or-so hell while she rides the elevator to the second floor and is absent from my sight but am swamped with relief when the light to her unit goes on and she steps inside.
“There she is…” I mutter, my hand moving up and down, dragging the head of my swollen erection.
The first thing she does is slip out of her pants, leaving them on the floor as she walks over to the fridge, my eyes glued to her black G-string. My jaw drops as I watch her caramel ass jiggle perfectly with each step she takes. The primal urge to mate with her awakens inside me. The urge to breed. To claim. To make her mine forever. I watch as she bends over, retrieves a bottle of water, then goes to her phone on the counter.
I flip a switch on the surveillance unit beside me. Before I was even assigned to Layla, the agency wired her apartment with audio and video. Standard protocol in a case like this one. Now as she presses speaker-phone on her cell, I can make out everything being said.
“Hey, girl,” she says in an exaggerated Valley girl tone. “What’s going on?”
“I’ve got news for you, bitch.” It’s Tasha, Layla’s twenty-year-old friend who currently tends bar at a dive near the University of Texas. “I found you a guy.”
Every muscle in my body goes tight.
A guy? No way in hell. Not while I’m alive.
“Oh, yeah? Even though I told you I don’t want a guy?” Layla asks, causing me to loosen up ever so slightly.
“Come on!” Tasha whines through the phone. “You want to be a virgin your whole life?”
“If it’s that or date one of these pompous, rich assholes you’re gonna try to set me up with–”
“How do you know he’s a pompous, rich asshole?” Tasha protests. Despite my jealousy and rage, I manage to chuckle as Layla shakes her head and laughs.
“I know you, Tash. We’ve been friends since fourth grade. I know who you’ll pick out for me.”
“And so what? You don’t want a guy who buys you diamond necklaces and tennis bracelets?”
“Gimmie a break, Tasha.”
“Would you shut up and just come out tonight?” Tasha asks. “If you don’t like him, fine. But if you do…”
An image assaults my mind of Layla standing by a man who isn’t me, wearing diamonds around her neck and wrists, smiling because she’s let Tasha talk her into living this kind of life.
“Fine,” Layla replies, grinding sharp pain up my spine. “But only because you asked so nicely.”
No. I cannot let this happen.
I will not.
I’ve got my eyes on you, beautiful. And the time has come to make you mine.
Hands shaking, I mute the girls’ conversation and dial Neal, my station chief. He answers on the first ring. “Yo, got an update for me?”
“It’s time to move in,” I growl, still stroking my dick with my eyes on Layla’s perfect ass.
“You’ve got something to work with? A way to make first contact?”
“There’s no time.” I’m lying to my superior officer. One of the most powerful men in the country. “We need to set up a vanilla sundae. Tonight.”