Total pages in book: 183
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
I force myself to take my time in making that choice. He’s in the legal profession. He’s well established in that profession. He’s powerful and rich. He could know people that I know and that could damage my reputation, but he’s also in a hotel. He’s not from here. He’s not of the New York legal world. And thinking that we’d actually meet again is certainly possible, but why would it matter to him? He is rich and powerful, and I’m a fresh face, with no power or control, not in that world.
I can do this with him tonight without consequence. This is not a problem and it’s been so long since I’ve been with anyone and I’ve never been with anyone like this, with no tomorrow and complete freedom. Tomorrow I’m back to all work and no play. Tomorrow there is no him which means I better do everything I might ever want to do with him and to him, right here and now. I choose to stay. I choose to do this for me and to follow him.
I push off the couch, pick up my bag, and walk to my right, following the path he’s created. This leads me to a hallway that presents a set of steps, because obviously, this place needs another set of steps. It’s all bells and whistles, displayed in thousands of square feet, in a city known for closet-sized everything. The steps are stone, the railing steel, and the panels between the two are glass. Fancy. Expensive. I grab the railing and start the upward climb, my heart thundering in my ears as I do. I’m nervous and I really don’t get nervous. Law school did that for me. A lot of things did that for me, actually. Life just doesn’t have a lot of patience for nerves and the hesitation that comes with them.
I reach the next level of the suite and there is only one open door. Inhaling, I enter the bedroom to find myself inside a huge master with a huge bed and a gray headboard directly behind it to my left. Beyond that massive bed is a sitting area, complete with a teal blue couch and two matching chairs. Cole is on the couch, an oval gray coffee table in front of him and on top of it is a bottle of wine with two glasses.
I don’t let myself inhale or prepare myself for what comes next. I embrace the moment, round the bed and stop on the opposite side of the table, setting my bag down on the floor beside it. He’s standing, towering high and broad by the time I arrive. “You stayed,” he says.
“You thought I’d leave?”
“I considered it an option.”
“I don’t feel competitive with you,” I say. “Not professionally.”
That firm, sexy mouth of his curves. “But when our clothes come off, all bets are off?”
My cheeks heat and I laugh. “Something like that.” I almost revert to pre-law school and add “I guess” but cut it off. I know better. Indecisive words tear away your control and your power.
His eyes darken, smoldering with heat, so much heat that I can barely breathe. “Why are you over there?” he challenges. “You can’t do ‘something like that’ or anything at all from there.”
He’s wrong. I can admire the fact that he personifies tall, dark, and good-looking, but why would I? Why am I over here, when I could be there? “You haven’t invited me over there,” I say.
“I didn’t know I had to.”
“You do,” I say, trying to turn my hesitation into my control.
“Then I am.” He holds out a hand to me. “Come over here.”
My belly tenses in anticipation of the touch he’s invited and that I plan to accept, but I do not hesitate. I want him. I want this. I reach out and rest my palm against his, warmth darting up my arm and over my chest, tightening my nipples. He closes his hands around mine, and for a moment, we just look at each other. And maybe I just want to live a Cinderella fantasy tonight, but it feels like something passes between us, something that trembles through me in some indescribable way.
“Come over here,” he orders softly again, and while I do not like being ordered around, there is a rough, affected quality to his voice that I like very much.
He guides me around the table and when I’m there with him, between it and the couch, I’m once again aware of just how tall and broad he is. It’s a fleeting thought lost when his hand slides under my hair to my neck. “We don’t have to do this,” he says. “We can drink wine and I’ll take you home or you can stay here with me and when I get back—”