Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 60951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Marnie lets out a breath. Her face is pale but controlled. “Okay, but why are you telling me this?”
I meet her gaze. “Because you deserve to know. And because I can’t stop thinking about you, and the fact that every time you walk into a room, I feel like I’m watching someone who could wreck me with a single word.”
For a second, the curvy girl says nothing. Then she stands, the chair skidding slightly on the floor. She crosses to the windows, presses her forehead to the glass. Her reflection merges with the city, and I can see her lips moving, counting or chanting or just reminding herself to breathe.
After a minute, she turns.
“You think this makes you a good person?” Marnie’s voice is ragged, but she holds my eyes.
“Hell no,” I say, crossing to her. “I would never think of myself as a good person, sweetheart. But this admission makes me honest for once in my life, and I want that with you. I crave it.”
She sighs a bit, looking downcast. “I don’t know what to say.”
I step closer, careful. “I’m not looking for forgiveness, Marnie. But if you want the rest of the file—if you want every scrap of evidence they hid—I can get it. I can give you more than James can. He doesn’t even know half of what I saw.”
She’s so close now I can smell her shampoo, the trace of wine on her breath. She looks at me, face open and incredibly beautiful with her tip-tilted nose and plush pout. “And if I say yes?”
“Then I help you. For real this time. No strings.”
She lifts her chin, and for a second, I think she’s going to slap me. Instead, she leans in and kisses me.
It’s not a gentle kiss. It’s raw, desperate, her lips rough on mine, her hands in my hair. I kiss the curvy girl back, arms around her waist, lifting her up so her feet leave the floor. She gasps, her nails biting my shoulders, and we stagger backward until her spine hits the glass. For a minute, it’s like drowning, and I want nothing more than to lose myself in this sexy, vivacious young woman.
But then Marnie pulls back, breathless, and looks at me with eyes that are suddenly, impossibly sad.
“I can’t,” she says, barely above a whisper.
“You can,” I say, but she shakes her head, frantic.
“No. Not tonight. Not—” She bites her lip, hard enough to leave a mark. “I’m sorry.”
Marnie slips past me, grabs her jacket, and heads for the door. I follow, but she’s already in the elevator vestibule, hair askew and cheeks flushed.
She presses the button, then turns and stares at me.
“Thank you for dinner, Brent,” she says. “And for telling me of the truth.”
Before I can answer, the doors close and she’s gone.
I stand there for a long time, the city buzzing and winking on the other side of the glass, and wonder what the fuck just happened. I’ve never had a woman walk out on me. Not once in my fucking life, so what the hell?
Then again, Marnie’s special. Different. Proud, hungry, intelligent, and lush. She’s not just a woman with big tits and a round ass that she lets me fuck, but smart and sassy too, with a mouth that talks and sucks.
I love it. And I’m trying to steal her for myself, from another man. Holy shit, I’m so fucking fucked.
16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN — THE OTHER MAN
JAMES
Inever cook for myself. I order in, or eat at my club, or let the fridge go empty except for cold brew and the occasional protein bar. But tonight, I’m dicing sweet potato with the kind of focus I usually reserve for closing arguments, every knife stroke clean and deliberate. The apartment is silent except for the click of the ceramic blade on the cutting board. Outside, the city is a neon grid, a living thing, but inside, everything is angles and shadows and the clinical whir of the induction cooktop.
I wonder, for the thousandth time, what the fuck I’m doing. Am I really boxing out my law partner? The guy whom I met during college, who’s my so-called “best friend”? Shit. I’m an asshole of the first degree because we have a system, Brent and me—a tag-team, a dynamic. We learned early that together, we’re irresistible and absolutely unstoppable. Women love being a part of a threesome with two rough, dominating alpha males who also happen to have huge cocks. So why am I hosting Marnie, alone, at my place, without telling my bud? Why am double-crossing a person I’ve trusted for decades?
The answer’s easy, but I don’t like it and force myself not to think of it. After all, I’m not supposed to be doing this. Yet I’m on the warpath, and moving forward at an inexorable speed.