Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 149338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
“Okay.” I stood, opening the door to leave.
“And, Lexi?”
I turned.
“Sometimes your heart can be wrong.”
I nodded, leaving. Whispering to myself, “I hope not.”
It was like one thing after another. I went from having nothing, to possibly having everything I had ever wanted, in the matter of a few days. If she would have asked me this months ago, before Martinez… I wouldn’t have thought twice about accepting the offer, I would have jumped on the next plane. It was what I’d been working so hard for all my life. Pushing my body to the limits, sacrificing so much.
“I wanted this, right?” I whispered to myself. My thoughts raged a war with my heart. In less than twenty-four hours this man had me questioning everything.
My thoughts didn’t let up on the way back home.
Home…
I actually thought of it as my home.
He was home to me.
I waited for him all day on the couch, anxious to see his handsome face. To breathe him in, to feel his arms wrapped around me. He never showed up. I woke up in the middle of the night still on the couch, jolting awake, feeling his presence watching over me. When my eyes fluttered open, I was alone. Nothing but the darkness of the penthouse surrounded me. My inner turmoil made me believe in an illusion, a figment of my imagination. What wasn’t there and maybe had never been.
I refused to think that.
I stayed on the couch, waiting. Falling in and out of sleep, secretly praying he would walk in, scoop me up into his strong arms and take me to bed. His bed. No such luck. Sleep finally took me under, rewarding me with dreams of his skilled hands and tongue. Of his body all over me. The next morning there was still no sign of him. No traces he’d ever come home. I got dressed and went to work, once again distracted by thoughts of him all day. It went on like this for four days.
Four days I didn’t see him.
I didn’t talk to him.
I didn’t feel him.
It was as if he had disappeared.
No one told me where he was when I asked, I tried calling his cell several times to no avail. By the fifth day I was beyond restless, thinking maybe I’d never see him again. Feeling devastated that he took the choice away from me, vanishing from my life as if he was never there to begin with. Racking my brain, I tried to think back to that night.
Had I done or said something wrong?
I was going stir crazy, sitting on that couch every night just to wake up disappointed in the morning. That evening, after eating dinner alone again, I went into his room. My body and mind yearned for a part of him. A fix, like he was my favorite kind of drug I couldn’t live without. Walking around the massive space, I took a real good look around for the first time. His room oozed masculinity and dominance, adding to its intimidating feel. A huge, black armoire was positioned on the left wall, almost taking up the entire space. The vast sliding glass doors on my right led out to the balcony, overlooking the city lights of Manhattan.
An array of colors blurred in the distance.
His bedroom suite was four times larger than mine, and mine was quite large. The walls were painted a dark shade of gray with expensive black and white art spread evenly around the walls. Two black end tables on each side of his bed, embedded with detailed woodcarvings along the edges, which matched his canopy bed frame. My toes immediately curled into the soft, shag, black accent rug that laid directly underneath his bed, as I ran my fingertips along the polished wood. Everything about his room was dark, and immense.
Just like him.
I couldn’t help but wander toward his walk-in closet. It was immaculate. Hundreds of collared shirts lining multiple racks on one side, dress pants and suit jackets on another. Ties of all colors and patterns hung on the far wall. Dress shoes of every kind lined the floor. The man didn’t own one piece of casual attire. Not one t-shirt, pair of jeans, sneakers or even sandals.
My fingers skimmed over the collared shirts, running the tips along the soft fabrics. I don’t know what got into me, but I found myself pulling off one of his white collared shirts from the hanger. Bringing it up to my nose, clutching it tight against my chest. Inhaling deep. Before I knew it, I was taking off my clothes. Only leaving on my panties, sliding the cool dress shirt on. I was drowning in it, but I didn’t care. It made me feel close to him, and at that moment, that was all that mattered to me.