Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
He tensed underneath me.
“I was with Beck since college—”
A growl vibrated from his chest. “Not enjoying hearing his name.”
My heart leaped, and I looked again at him.
His eyes were fixed on me in a very possessive way.
More flutters skipped through me, making my body vibrate underneath my skin. I said, slowly, “I was with my ex”—his eyes flashed in approval and I kept on, a small smile coming to my face—“for so long and now I’m feeling all sorts of stupidity for being with him. I wasn’t living.”
I wanted to live.
I wanted to live so bad.
“You want to live now?” His eyes grew soft. He brushed some hair back from my forehead, being so tender about it. “Fucking me made you think of your ex? I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
I shook my head slightly, giving him another small grin. “No. It’s like living inside a closet, thinking a flashlight hanging from the ceiling was sunshine. Then you came along. You opened the door. You walked me outside and you showed me the real sun. You gave me real sunshine. It’s like that.” I winced. “Don’t get a big head.”
He began to grin. “So you’re saying that I am like the sun to you—”
I growled before getting serious again.
I wanted to tell him the rest, because I needed to face it. This link with him was the reason we were in this mess. It’d been there from the beginning.
“He didn’t leave me because he’d been cheating on me. He left me because she was pregnant.”
He went still, still holding me.
My head rested against his chest. “The sex with you woke me up. A month earlier, I’d be calling Manda and dishing out the details. She’d rush over. We’d have wine and gossip all about it. I would do that because that’s what I thought I was supposed to do, but I wouldn’t have liked it. It would’ve felt empty to me. It did feel empty with me. Me and her. For so long. She’d tell me what’s going on with her life and though we wouldn’t be solving world peace, we’d be feeling on top of the world. Or that’s what I would feel that we should’ve been feeling. That’s what a good friend does for you. I don’t have that.” This was the hard truth to admit. “I don’t think I ever did.”
His hand went to my thigh, giving it a soft squeeze. “I’m sorry about that.”
“The last week’s put a lot of things into perspective. I’m realizing how empty my life was regarding them. The real thing I gotta grieve is the time I gave them. Both of them. They didn’t deserve it. And that . . . I think that’ll take some time. That is, if we get out of this whole thing alive.”
He tensed all over again underneath me. His hand slid to the inside of my thigh before he turned me around. I went with him until I was straddling him.
Back to business.
His eyes were shadowed, his face hard.
My chin rose, and I told him, “You fucked up.”
His eyes narrowed. “I—”
“You shouldn’t have taken me how you did. You drugged me.”
He let out a ragged breath, some of the fight leaving him. “That was Ashton.”
I leaned closer to him, seething. “I don’t care who it was. I’m yours. That means it happened on your watch.”
His eyes started glittering at me, a new intensity sweeping in there and taking hold.
“I’m going to get you back.”
He tensed all over again.
I smirked down at him, resting my hands on his chest. His very strong and cement-like chest that was suddenly so still under my touch. “Payback is going to come. It won’t be when you expect it, but it will come. Promise you. But until then”—I smiled, but my own breath hitched at seeing that intense look from him—“I told them a story about a family feud that was going on. My family. They bought it.”
“They didn’t buy it.”
“Yes, they did.”
“Your Aunt Clara tried calling 911.”
I started to argue until his words registered. “Wait. What?”
“I had a cell jammer turned on so no calls could go through, but it was logged.”
“Aren’t you full of surprises, with your spy toys.”
He snorted, his hands returning to my thighs, starting to mold over them. His eyes lidded, but never moved away from mine. “I worked in organized crime. We were current on a lot of fancy tech. Most departments aren’t. Also, so you know, your cousin’s husband—his family’s connected.”
I frowned. “I don’t know what that means.”
“They’re loaded in a way that my family is also loaded.”
“Oliver’s family is Mafia?”
“They’re connected. They have Mafia ties. He recognized the others with me.”
I sat even farther back, regarding him. “What?” Replaying the conversation that happened in the study when we’d been eavesdropping on who Jake’s friends were, I didn’t remember any hint at that. “Are you sure?”