Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“Oh, I don’t know. Everything here. The champagne. The personal shopper. The price on the pants.”
Brows pinching, Cosimo pushed off the wall, and moved into the dressing room, making a beeline for the racks of clothes, picking up a tag, and checking the price himself.
“I’m not seeing the problem,” he said.
“They’re six hundred dollars. For pants. Pants. What? Are the stitches made out of spun gold?” I asked.
“They’re well-made pants. They will last. Why do you care?” he asked.
“It’s too much,” I insisted.
“That’s for me to decide,” he said.
I’m not proud to admit this, but some part of me was, well, feeling a little swoony. I mean, you can’t be spoon-fed fairy tales and romantic movies since you were a little girl without harboring at least a small amount of wishfulness toward the fantasy of a rich, successful man wanting to pamper the hell out of you.
But the adult, practical woman that I was, knew that there was nothing for free in this world. That people didn’t spend their well-earned money to buy you an entire wardrobe of designer clothes without something being expected in turn.
And, well, the last kind of man you wanted to be indebted to was one who was in the business of, you know, breaking kneecaps and murdering people.
“I’m not picking anything,” I said, chin jerking up.
“Then you will get everything in here, whether you like the items or not,” he said, stalking over toward me, towering over me.
I’m not proud of this fact, but I totally took a step back.
Then another.
Until the wall prevented me from going any further.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, hearing a tightness in my chest, but comforting myself that only I would know it was from desire. He probably heard fear or something like that.
“Why are you being so stubborn?” he countered.
“I could buy clothes at literally any other store.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Do you get some sort of thrill out of acting like a petulant child?” he asked, making me jerk back.
“What? I’m not acting like a child. I’m actually the only one being reasonable here. You want to buy thousands and thousands of dollars of clothes that I don’t want, that’s on you,” I said, trying to take a step to the side, only to find his hand slamming down into the wall, trapping me.
“You’re gonna try to tell me,” he said, the fingers on his free hand pinching the hem of my shirt, “that you don’t love how this feels on your skin?” he asked, the knuckles of his hand sliding up over my belly, then my breast.
My breath caught, and an involuntary shiver coursed through me as his finger slid over my nipple.
I could feel my lips part even as my gaze slid up to his, finding his eyes heavy-lidded as they looked down at me.
“I mean, if you really don’t like it…” he said.
His hand was off my breast then.
And the other was suddenly off of the wall.
But only because both hands were grabbing the shirt, and pulling it upward.
It happened so fast that my arms went up automatically, and the material was gone in a blink, tossed carelessly to the ground.
This time, the shiver that moved through me was both hot and cold. Cold, because of the sudden nakedness. Hot, because of his brazenness.
I shouldn’t have found it sexy.
The same way I shouldn’t have found it sexy when he’d opened my robe.
Somehow, though, every single shred of hesitation had left my body. Because I was melting under his heated gaze.
“I might like this better anyway,” he said, his voice a purring thing, moving over and through me somehow at the same time.
His gaze lowered, and I watched his chest expand as he sucked in a deep breath, then slowly released it.
But he wasn’t done.
His hand teased over my belly for a second before finding the buttons and zipper of my slacks, working them free, then drawing them down.
Leaving me in nothing but a pair of lacy black panties with a pink and yellow floral pattern over the hip cut outs. The entire back was lace, leaving nothing to the imagination.
“Knew these would look incredible,” he said, seeming to speak to himself, but his words warmed me regardless.
Yes, because he liked how I looked in them.
But also because I’d been wrong.
He hadn’t had a sister or assistant pick out the panties.
He’d done it.
With me in mind.
This man who seemed permanently attached to his cell phone, who was all about work every minute of the day, had put it away to think about me.
About me in panties, nonetheless.
“But, I think,” he said, his finger tracing across my belly again, but this time hooking a finger into my panties when he reached the center, “they’d look even better off,” he said, then drawing them down.
Not only that.
Oh, no.
He started to move down as well.