Total pages in book: 225
Estimated words: 218500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1093(@200wpm)___ 874(@250wpm)___ 728(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 218500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1093(@200wpm)___ 874(@250wpm)___ 728(@300wpm)
“So, you were kidnapped when you were a child?” she asks. “Did you get therapy for it?”
Is she just stalling? She’s probably trying to figure me out while stalling.
“Therapy was the biggest part of that problem.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t want to talk about that. I want to fuck you. I want to make you squirm and whimper for me.”
“I don’t want to have sex with you, Derek.”
“But there’s nothing stopping you now. No hall pass.” I kiss her jaw. “No sad fiancé who’d rather play videogames on his computer all day than play with you. If I had nothing to do all day and night but play with you? Mm.” I kiss her again. “Watching this hot little body bend to my will? Oh wait… that’s exactly what I’ve got.”
“Stop,” she mutters unconvincingly.
“You have a new fiancé who can’t get enough of you, who knows what to do with you. Don’t you?”
“I haven’t agreed to marry you,” she advises.
“That’s fair. I guess I haven’t technically asked yet,” I reason.
“You declared it would happen,” she mutters. “I don’t understand any of this, Derek. None of this makes any sense to me.”
“I recognized something in you. Something that fascinated me.” I move up the bed, bringing her with me. I put her on her back, pin her arms over her head and kiss her neck again. Goosebumps erupt on her warm flesh. “It occurred to me how you must have yearned.” I lick the shell of her ear and then whisper, “Hearing your story, thinking about you doing all that yearning, it woke something up in me.”
“Woke up what?” she whispers back. “Psycho stalker tendencies? What? How many times has this happened before with you? And what happens when you’re over it?”
I lean back enough so our eyes meet, and I see something in her eyes that’s new. Genuine curiosity?
I stare at her for a minute.
“Seriously, Derek. Why me?” she asks.
“I don’t feel much. Coping mechanism, I guess. When I do, I get focused. Women haven’t ever made me feel much. Beyond sexual release. Never connected with a woman before.”
“We haven’t connected.”
“Don’t lie,” I whisper. “You felt chemistry immediately. So did I. I’ve felt sexual attraction before but with you it was more. Probably because I knew some of your secrets at that point. I felt something new when I listened to you and Alannah talking, and mostly it was you I was listening to. That yearning in your voice. It woke something new up. I wanted to fix your problems for you. Wanted to satisfy you. And I did, didn’t I?”
Her cheeks pinken despite that she looks a little annoyed.
“Sexually at least. I also wanted to know what it might feel like to yearn for something as much as you. And I started feeling that way about you. Yearned to be the one who made you feel wanted. I wanted to know what it’d take to make your dam finally break. Your dam of giving so much of yourself. The yearning for connection would have to break past your filter of doing the thing that was expected of you. I was hearing so much longing. Once I dug in and found out a bit about you, I yearned even more. For more than just to satisfy you. I wanted all your good intentions, your loyalty… aimed at me.”
She grimaces.
“Wanted you to want me. To be mine. Wanted you to wear things for me. To do things for me. And to never feel like a slave again. To feel noticed. Appreciated. Seen. To spend time learning more and more about you, what makes you tick, how to excite you, how to make you feel wanted and appreciated.”
I lick my lips and examine her face, which is rapt with attention.
“I knew I could get your attention, make you envision using that hall pass on me. But I also knew you probably wouldn’t allow yourself the luxury. Because it’s not who you are. Which is an attractive quality. And I knew you weren’t going after what you yearned for because you were being that good girl again. Doing what was expected of you. Staying loyal to him because of that treat others the way you want to be treated adage. You want unconditional love, so you’ve chosen to love that way. And it’s what you’ve probably done all along in life. And pondering that… I wanted to make things better for you and I wanted to become the one you realized was the key to having what you want. If you’ve got to be a good girl and do the right thing, maybe you need someone to watch out for you, to make sure that being a good girl doesn’t mean getting the shitty end of the stick; I want it to mean getting everything you want. Every single thing, Chloe. I want to earn your loyalty.”