Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Sloan’s orgasm exploded through her, brought on by his words as much as by what he was doing to her body. He kept her riding him until his strokes became jerky and he came, her name on his lips. She slumped against him, her mind slowly kicking back into gear despite her best efforts to keep the glorious post-orgasm fog around her.
What does it say about me that I find his threatening to hunt me down sexy? That’s not sexy. It’s deranged.
Except…Part of her felt the same way. She hated that he’d lied to her, hated that his looking for information instead of just talking to her had brought Romanov dogs down upon them, hated that he’d killed people…But she could understand, no matter how much she didn’t want to.
She wasn’t fierce, like Carrigan or Keira. She hadn’t been willing to go to war when Devlin was killed. All Sloan had wanted was to curl in on herself until the pain passed enough that she could breathe through it. But Carrigan? What would Carrigan have done if her entire family was murdered by the enemy?
The exact same thing Jude has. She wouldn’t have let something as simple as pain or guilt stop her from seeking vengeance.
She didn’t want to understand, but she did all the same.
She lifted her head. “Jude—”
“Not yet.” He helped her stand and fixed his clothing. There was no help for hers. Even if the rain hadn’t made her sundress sheer, the rip down the center ensured there was no way she could cover herself effectively.
There was no one around to see, though it was entirely possible that Sorcha had gotten an eyeful if she’d happened to look out the window at the wrong time. Sloan glanced in that direction, but the rain created a haze that made it difficult to see more than the vague shapes of their houses. “I—”
“I said not yet.”
He started to take her hand, but she jerked away. “If we’re doing this, there’s one thing you’re going to have to come to terms with. You can’t steamroll me anywhere except the bedroom. I won’t stand for it.” She’d been a doormat for far too long. She’d just finally gotten her feet beneath her, and going back to how things had been before wasn’t an option. She refused to allow it to be.
For a moment, it looked like Jude might argue, but he crossed his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrows instead. “Yes?”
Right about then was when she realized they were both soaked to the bone and standing in the rain, and that it was downright foolish to have any kind of conversation out here when his house was a hundred yards away. Sloan shook her head. “No, you’re right. We’ll talk once we’re inside.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jude shut the door behind them and stripped out of his wet clothes. He didn’t give Sloan a chance to voice whatever was going on in her head before he was stripping her down, too. He led her into his bathroom and turned on the shower, his words from earlier echoing in his mind. He’d called her his. He’d told her that he’d hunt her down like some sort of madman if she left him.
He had passed the point of no return with this woman.
It didn’t make a damn bit of sense. The sex was out of control, but it was sex. It shouldn’t be enough to derail his entire plan. Then again, his plan hadn’t counted on Callista being pregnant. Jude guided Sloan beneath the spray, ignoring her pointed look. She was playing along, and that was all he asked for right now. He needed time to process, to get his head on straight again.
If that was even possible at this point.
Already, he wanted her again, but they had shit to iron out first. Fucking her until they weren’t capable of moving might sound like a dream right now, but it wouldn’t solve a damn thing. He shut off the water and handed her a towel. “Now we talk.”
Sloan wrapped herself in the big fluffy towel, the sheer amount of fabric dwarfing her. It made her look younger, innocent, and even though he knew it was an illusion, it didn’t stop a pang of something like guilt from going through him. She frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Because everything’s changed.
He didn’t say it. Instead, he grabbed a towel for himself and dried off. “You will take a pregnancy test tomorrow. It’s not negotiable.”
“Okay.”
He glanced over, having expected her to argue, and she sighed. “While living in denial a little while longer wouldn’t be a bad thing, it’s also unrealistic. If I am, I need to know—”
“We need to know.”
“—so I can plan accordingly.”
“That sounds an awful lot like you making plans that don’t include me.” He should be grateful—he needed a kid like he needed another hole in his head—but the thought of her out in the world without him, let alone out in the world with his child, didn’t sit well. He’d told her she was his, and it didn’t matter that he’d said it while he was inside her. It felt like the truth.