Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 45943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
I stare firmly at the large fish tank, focusing on the kaleidoscopic of colors so Yasmin can’t see the way my cheeks flood with red. A tingle pulses over my body, and my mind throws itself back to three years ago when Jamie Jensen left to establish the Japan branch of Alignment Industries.
I was only sixteen, just a girl … heck, maybe nineteen can still be considered immature and girlish, but technically I’m an adult. Back then, I’d just gotten out of my braces and I was obsessed with Lord of the Rings, always dressed in some dorky T-shirt, basically invisible to handsome, steel haired Jamie Jensen.
I remember the way he smiled at me, casually, not even seeing me as he said a cursory goodbye to his daughter’s friend.
“She’ll take good care of you,” he said, before turning back to Yasmin, forgetting me in an instant.
But I never forgot him.
His arms bulging in his suit jacket, his clean shaven face showing the prominence of his strong jawline. His eyes, even paler than Yasmin’s, staring like two blazing points of ice, searing into me, filling my overactive wannabe writer’s mind with a thousand impossible scenarios.
And now he’s back.
I force down the tide of yearning that rises inside of me, the vignettes of passion that bob and bounce in my consciousness, telling me that now he’s in the States—
What?
Now he’s in the States, what?
He’s Jamie Jensen, a forty-one year old billionaire, not to mention my best friend’s dad.
He’d never be interested in a curvy inexperienced dork like me, so it’s time I put those childish fantasies behind me.
“Jade?” Yasmin says.
“Sorry,” I murmur, realizing she’s said my name more than once. “I was miles away.”
“Dreaming of your next bestseller?” she says.
I laugh drily. “Doesn’t next bestseller imply that I already have a bestseller?”
“Okay, Miss Pedantic. Dreaming of your first bestseller then?”
“Something like that,” I murmur.
I hate lying to her, but what the heck am I supposed to say?
Actually, Yas, I was thinking about your dad staring at me with those intense blue eyes of his as he tears off my waitress’s uniform. I hope you don’t mind.
“Did you want chocolate sprinkles?” she asks.
“Oh, yeah, thank you,” I say.
She brings over the cocoas and we sit side by side, sipping them.
“So when does your dad get back?” I murmur, somehow keeping the tremor out of my voice.
“Tomorrow evening,” she says. “He’s coming here for dinner. Will you join us? You know what he’s like, all stern and broody and serious all the time. I’ll need my bestie’s support. Please?”
“Uh, sure,” I murmur.
Because she’s my best friend.
And definitely not because I’m crushing mega hard on her dad.
Chapter Two
Jamie
I close my eyes and savor the feeling of being back home as the elevator ascends to Yasmin’s apartment.
Back when I was first starting out – after my short-but-successful MMA career – this was the first apartment I purchased. For years it was my base of operation, and as the elevator gets higher and higher I really can’t think of a better welcome to the city.
Three long years it took to establish my business in Japan, but now it’s done.
We succeeded.
It’s time to get back to normal life, or whatever passes for normal for a man like me.
I open my eyes when the doors slide away with a quiet beep. When I lived here, admittedly the space was far barer and less homely. Yasmin hasn’t exactly made it a warm log cabin, but her personality shines through in every choice of decoration.
I drag myself down the hallway, my body still adjusting to the time difference. I’m just about ready to devour a steak and then pass out on the couch, and then wake tomorrow morning and do what I always do.
Go into work and attack my day’s to-do list like it spilled my drink in a bar.
Humming greets me as I round the corner, the voice pitched high and sounding angelic and songlike.
There’s a beauty in the voice that confuses the hell out of me, mostly because I’m not the sort of man who hears or sees beauty in much these days.
Maybe the figures that make up our quarterly statements.
Yeah, maybe they’re beautiful.
But now the humming draws me inexorably toward it like a siren song, like something I can’t fight.
I round the corner to the open plan living area to find a woman I don’t recognize sitting in the armchair.
My mouth drops open and my heart begins to thump hotly.
Jesus Christ.
My manhood floods and presses against my belt, throbbing as though it wants nothing more than for me to free it from its prison and guide it to this woman’s pursed lips, force it in inch by sinful inch until she’s gagging and gasping for more.
I stare, unable to stop.
I’ve never been this captivated before.
Her long dark hair spills out of a snow white beanie hat, the contrast making her hair look even darker and more luscious. It falls down to her shoulders, framing her round and cute-as-fuck face, with big green eyes that send urgent signals right down to my core. She’s wearing a baggy hoodie and gray sweatpants, but they can’t hide the curves beneath the material.