Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
He leaned back enough to study her expression. “What did I say to put that look on your face?”
“It’s nothing.” Nothing except her mind being twisted into a tangle that she could barely navigate. He didn’t have a problem with anything that had happened to date—she was the one creating the complications.
“I know what nothing looks like, and that’s not it.” He tipped up her chin. “Tell me, Olivia.”
How was she supposed to deny him when he said her name in that tone of voice? A tone like he actually cared if he’d hurt her. Like he wanted to make it better. Every instinct she had demanded she close down and retreat to lick her wounds—opening up only gave the world more chances to stab her in the back.
Instead, she told the truth. “I’m just feeling awfully easy right now.”
“Sweetheart, you’re not easy.” His brows dipped in a frown. “There’s nothing wrong with seeing what you want and going for it—whether it’s sex, money, or something else.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is.” He glanced over his shoulder as a black town car with darkly tinted windows pulled up to the curb behind them. “Come on.”
“Cillian, I’m not sure this is a good idea…”
“Trust me.” He stopped, and looked at her. “Just this once. This stops the second you want it stopped. Say the word and I get you to Jameson’s—no questions asked.”
He’s too good to be true.
Maybe, but that didn’t stop her from taking his hand and letting him lead her to the car. He ushered her into the backseat and climbed in behind her. Sure enough, there was a dark glass divider between them and the front seat, though it was cracked a few scant inches.
Cillian glanced at his watch. “Drive around for the next forty-five minutes, but stay in this general area.”
“Yes, sir.” The window closed before she could get a good look at the man in the driver’s seat.
She crossed her arms over her chest, and immediately reversed the movement. “So, what now?”
“Now, sweetheart, we do whatever you want.” He leaned back and draped his arms over the back of the seat. The position put his hand close to the back of her neck, and he trailed a finger across her spine.
She shivered. “Whatever I want.”
“Exactly what I said.” The tension in his body belied the ease of his words. “Normally…Well, it doesn’t matter what would happen normally. We’ve played that game before and, I don’t know about you, but I like the reality better than any alternative thing we could dream up. I like you, Olivia. I want to take you out again. So I’m willing to do whatever it takes not to spook you.”
“I’m not a wild animal.”
“Aren’t you?” He traced some abstract pattern over her skin, drawing forth another shiver. “It’s not meant as an insult. My point is that what happens in the next forty-five minutes is completely within your control.”
“My control.” She tasted the words, considering them, and then scooted closer. “Anything I want.” She liked the sound of that. She liked it a lot. Maybe he was right—there was nothing wrong with seeing what you wanted and taking it. She might have been fighting it since that first time, but the truth was that she wanted Cillian.
“Anything you want.” He didn’t blink.
“Tempting. Very tempting.” She ran a hand down the center of his chest, undoing the buttons one by one. It took a few minutes between the vest and the shirt beneath, but then she had his bare chest laid out before her. She spread his shirt, and then traced over the dragon. “How old were you when you got this done?”
“Eighteen.”
She leaned down and kissed the dragon between his eyes. Cillian smelled amazing, like some kind of expensive cologne and, beneath that, the man she wanted more than she had a right to. “And the bullet scar?”
“Six months ago.”
She traced it with her mouth. It must have broken his collarbone when it hit him, but she was suddenly so incredibly thankful that it hadn’t gone near anything vital. “The person who shot you?”
“Dead.”
“Good.” The thought of some person wandering the world after putting a bullet in this man was wrong on so many levels. The gunman should have died for what he did, and she was glad to hear that he had.
She shifted down to the floorboard so she could kneel between his legs. “I like your ink. I don’t know if I said that the other night.”
“I like that you like it.” In the darkness of the car, his eyes were pools of shadow. Even his voice sounded different, huskier and full of promises that she was only too eager to follow through on.
She undid his belt slowly, liking the way his mouth tightened, but didn’t immediately go for the button of his slacks. Instead, she kissed his stomach, following the line of the dragon’s back to his chest and then to his shoulder where its wings met the swallows bracketing his throat.