Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
But the loan repayment was too much for that. Fifteen hundred dollars would have to go to the repayment. That’d leave me with $500 for everything else. I gritted my teeth against the panic and—
Two sharp knocks sounded at the door.
I swallowed.
Another two knocks. “Open up, Riley. We’re going to talk.”
Chapter 11
Jax
Silence on the other side of this door, and I clenched my fist. It’d been a long time since I’d been this fucking angry. Cherry had appeared at the most inopportune time. She’d legitimately cock-blocked me, and I didn’t buy the dropped phone bullshit she’d plied me with.
That phone had been in my pocket before she’d entered my office at Club Queen. How the fuck had it wound up in her hands?
I knocked a final time. “Riley, I’m not here to fuck with your head. I just want to talk.”
“Why?” Her voice was muted, distant. I hated that.
“Because of what happened today.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play dumb. Seeing Cherry pissed you off, I get that, and we need to discuss it before this goes further.”
Footsteps padded to the door. The lock clicked, and she appeared in a pair of cute PJ shorts, polka-dotted, and a plain white tee. It hinted at the body underneath. I focused on her face to keep my cock in line.
“Goes further?” she asked, her head cocked to one side. “What the hell do you mean by that? What are you referring to, exactly?”
I stepped closer to her. “You know exactly what I’m referring to. It’s been a week, and you’re all I can think about all day long. It’s the same for you.”
“How can you possibly know that?” Riley folded her tan arms across her breasts, moving them beneath the cotton.
My dick twitched. “Because it’s written all over your lips. It’s in your eyes. It’s in the way you smell when you’re around me. I can taste it on the fucking air, Riley. You want me. Constantly, you want me.”
She shuddered a breath. Her eyes were red—had she been crying?
“And it’s not just sexual, either.” That was the part I couldn’t come to terms with. I didn’t feel. Feeling was for men who wanted their bank accounts emptied or their squishy, pussy hearts trodden all over.
But with her, Christ, I just wanted to protect her. I wanted to hold her in my arms and keep her from feeling anything that might hurt her, emotionally or otherwise.
“Why?” she managed.
“Maybe it’s the way you taste,” I said. “No, it’s just you, Riley. You’re too strong. You’re too much like…”
“Like what?”
I didn’t want to say it. Admitting it meant I’d taken a step into some unknown territory and it had happened fast. Too fucking fast.
“Like what?” Riley asked, again.
“Like me. You’re too much like me,” I replied.
She pressed her lips together and shook her head, those long, dark locks swaying, loose around her shoulders. “No,” she said. “We’re nothing alike. You hang out with strippers and—”
“Fuck the strippers.”
Riley raised both eyebrows.
“Fine, not fuck the strippers. You know what I mean, goddammit. I have no interest in them. No interest in Cherry if that’s what’s bothering you, and damn if I won’t fire the woman if she does get on your nerves.”
“No. You can’t do that.”
“I can do whatever the hell I want,” I replied. Except for her. Or for buying her studio. “Cherry’s just an employee, and you’re—”
“Just your roommate. For the next three weeks. And then it’s over, and we can carry on with our lives.”
“If that’s what you’re imagining, you’re totally fucking wrong,” I replied. “I came here to apologize for what happened. Cherry shouldn’t have come to your place of work. It was out of line. She interrupted us, and I disciplined her accordingly for it.”
“I don’t care about the damn stripper, Jax. I care that I’m—you know what, never mind. This is ridiculous. We shouldn’t even be having this discussion because it doesn’t matter. In a couple weeks I’ll be out of your hair, and you can cart your strippers around to wherever you want—except my studio, of course. I’m still not selling it to you.”
I took her by the forearms and dragged her toward me. Pressed her right up against my chest. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“What?” she breathed, her throat working around emotion or unspoken words.
“It’s too late already. The minute I saw you, it was too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“For us. For turning back. For whatever the hell bullshit plan you’ve got streaming through your head right now.”
She railed against me, hissed under her breath. “You don’t know anything about my plans.”
“You want this as bad as I do. You hated that she walked in there, asking for me. You fucking hated it, and I did too.”
“What does that mean?” Riley asked, and stilled, staring up at me. “What does it mean, you hated it too? Those clubs are what you do for a living. How can you hate having strippers around?”