Total pages in book: 235
Estimated words: 224334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1122(@200wpm)___ 897(@250wpm)___ 748(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 224334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1122(@200wpm)___ 897(@250wpm)___ 748(@300wpm)
Her mouth falls open. She’s shocked? I bet she is nowhere close to the level of disbelief I felt when I opened my eyes this morning. I look down at the lovely, decorated table. And around the restaurant. Why the fuck did I bring her here?
Two coffees appear, and I frown down at the foamy head. That’s exactly how my dick probably looks right now. Frothing. I shift in my chair, uncomfortable, as Ava slowly stirs her coffee, looking up at me. “You have had quite an action-packed morning.”
Action-packed? Fuck me, I must have lost ten kilos, had ten heart attacks, swore more in one day than in my lifetime, and sweated buckets. I never want a repeat. “Ava,” I say over a sigh, “don’t ever do that to me again.”
“You were crazy mad.”
“I was way, way past crazy mad.” I have to start rubbing soothing circles into my head, massaging away the headache that’s threatening.
“Why?” she asks, and I stop, frowning.
She needs me to explain? “Because I couldn’t get to you,” I snap, and she recoils. She really doesn’t get it, and that’s not good. I can’t believe I have to say it, but I will. If it saves me future heart attacks, I absolutely will. “The thought of not being able to reach you actually made me panic.”
“I was in the room.” She laughs, and then shrinks, making herself small, peeking around nervously.
“You weren’t in the room when you left.”
Her embarrassment vanishes, and coming up the rear fast, overtaking, is annoyance. I’m staggered. She thinks she’s got a right to be mad too? “I left because you threatened me.”
“Well,” I grate. “That’s because you made me crazy mad. When did you get those handcuffs?” I smack the table hard, and the silverware jumps up from the cloth and lands with a clang.
“When I left work yesterday.” She snarls. I swear, one more sign of insolence and I absolutely will give everyone in this restaurant a front-row seat to a sense fuck. “You kind of pissed all over my plan with your retribution fuck.”
“Watch your mouth,” I snap, glancing around, ready to apologize to the lovely people in The Ritz for her disgusting language. “I pissed on your plan? Ava, let me tell you”—I lean forward, threatening, and meaning to be—“nowhere in my plan was it written that you would have me restrained and at your mercy. So it is you who pissed all over my plan.” I lean back and hold my hand over my mouth, coughing when the waiter delivers our brunch.
“Is that all, sir?” he asks.
“Yes.” Fuck off. “Thank you.”
Ava wastes no time tucking in, tilting her head as she cuts into an egg. “You should know your temptress is extremely pleased with herself.” On a cheeky grin, she pops her fork in her mouth and slips it out on an erection-provoking pop. Fuck. I can’t be mad with her anymore. It’s a waste of our time. She’s learned her lesson, I’ve learned mine. I’ll be disposing of all handcuffs at The Manor and maybe sending out a mug shot of Ava to all sex shops. Do not serve this woman. Besides, it seems after copping a load of Ava’s diary, I have bigger problems on my plate, and since I’m now perfectly reassured that Ava’s not skipping town since she found out there’s a solid eleven years—soon to be twelve—between us, I should get on and deal with the next shitstorm. I’ll start with crowding her.
She has information she deemed vital to our relationship. So, yes, she’s pleased with herself. “I bet she is. Does she know how crazy in love with her I am?”
She disintegrates in an instant, her chewing slowing, her eyes shimmering as she admires me across the table. Her view has nothing on mine. “I think she does.”
“She had better not just think,” I say, finally starting my brunch.
“She knows.”
“Good.”
“What’s the problem, anyway? Thirty-seven is nothing.”
What about thirty-eight? Two years off forty. And nothing? She should live thirty-seven years of my life. It feels like centuries. A long, painful torture, each day spent in a smog of women and drink to try and make them pass faster and easier. But now I have Ava? I don’t want to miss a moment. What I would do to rewind my life and meet her so much sooner. I frown to myself. But if I’d met Ava after Lauren, she would have only been seven. I feel green all of a sudden. Seven? It sounds so fucking wrong. I look up at Ava. The twenty-six-year-old goddess. What’s the problem? “I don’t know.” I shrug. “You’re in your mid-twenties, and I’m in my late thirties.”
“So?” she says, studying me as I squirm. “It bothers you more than it does me.”
Easy for her to say. And how the fuck was I supposed to know that at the crack of dawn when she was getting her kicks out of torturing me? “Maybe,” I muse, returning to my plate, my mind returning to Ava’s imminent meeting with Van Der Haus.