Total pages in book: 211
Estimated words: 201554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1008(@200wpm)___ 806(@250wpm)___ 672(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1008(@200wpm)___ 806(@250wpm)___ 672(@300wpm)
Her hand settles on my chest and grips my lapel, that perfect mouth of hers tilting toward mine as if she’s offering it to me. “What are you doing?” she demands, sounding breathless. I want her breathless all night long.
“What does it look like I’m doing? Kissing my sister.” My mouth slants over hers, my tongue sliding right past her perfectly puckered lips, and with one deep stroke, she moans for me, and I’m undone. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kiss anyone more than I want to kiss this woman right here, right now. I deepen the kiss and press her against the wall, my free hand at her waist, her hand on my hand. Her tongue meets mine for every lick and stroke until I pull back and stare down at her.
Voices sound in the distance, but too close for comfort, and I seize what time we have left, and decide to do her a favor. I decide to be honest with her, like no one else in my father’s world will. “He’s using you to push Isaac, just like he’s always used me. You’ll never inherit. You’ll never be anything but the princess standing next to the prince and his king. And just for the record. I’m not your fucking brother.” I release her and walk away, making a fast path through the kitchen and out of the house.
Once I’m in the midst of the crowd, I cut through the mess of people and find my way back to the path to my cottage where I enter and have every intention of packing up and getting the hell out of here. I’ve barely shut the door when the bell rings. Who the hell followed me to the cottage, because someone sure as fuck did. I fling open the door to find Harper standing there.
“Because why would anyone think that I have anything real to bring to the table, right?” she challenges, as if we were still in the middle of our prior conversation, her beautiful blue eyes sparking with anger. “Because all my time with my father, learning his business, taught me nothing.”
I grab her and pull her inside the cottage.
Chapter three
Eric
In about thirty seconds, I have the door shut and locked, and Harper pressed against the wall, my thighs shackling hers. “You don’t get to tell me what I can or cannot do,” she hisses, as if she doesn’t notice that I’m about double her size and presently the one in control.
“How old are you?” I demand.
“What does that have to do with anything?” she snaps back, not even close to backing down.
“How old?” I repeat.
“Twenty-three, but I still don’t get why that has anything to do with this.”
“How long have you been out of school?”
“Just because I’m not a thirty-year-old literal genius doesn’t mean I have nothing to offer, and the suggestion that it does makes you an asshole.”
“I’m not suggesting that you have nothing to offer. I’m telling you it doesn’t matter to him. I thought it did, too, way back when. I thought if I was better than Isaac, I’d have a place. It didn’t. I won’t.”
“Then why are you even here?”
“Apparently to kiss you.” My fingers tangle in her hair and I lower my mouth to hers.
“This is a bad idea,” she whispers, but her voice is raspy, affected. I can almost taste her hunger for me in the air.
I kiss her, a quick brush of lips, and a lick that has the heat between us damn near explosive. “Still think it’s a bad idea?”
Her hands flatten on my chest but they flex rather than push. “We both know this is wrong.”
“And yet you followed me here.”
“You said that already.”
“You knew what would happen if you came here,” I accuse.
“I was impulsive, driven by anger.”
I certainly know all too well how anger and family collide in ways I won’t ever explain to anyone. My jaw sets hard and I release her, putting a wide step between us. “Stay or go, but if you stay, you’re going to end up naked.”
“I know your father’s an asshole, but my mother loves him and my father’s company is now a part of yours.”
“His,” I correct. “And the part where I said that if you stayed, you’d end up naked,” I reach for her and pull her to me, “you did understand that, correct?”
“I don’t scare off that easily. If I did, I wouldn’t be working for your father and under your brother.”
“It’s me I want you under,” I say, molding her close, my hands caressing down her back, and cupping her perky backside.
“I’m too young and stupid for business, but I’m just right to fuck?”
“I’m warning you, Harper, not talking down to you. And if you’re young and stupid, so was I.”
“You wanted to be here,” she says, and it’s not a question or the accusation I’d get from Isaac.