Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
She was sitting up in bed, the blankets pulled up to her neck—which pissed me off. She was my fucking fiancée; she didn’t get to hide her body from me. Besides, I’d already seen her incredible ass. And I’d held her while she’d come. And now she was cowering like I was a complete stranger.
I took off my jacket and holster, and then a new thought hit. Maybe she wasn’t scared—maybe she was hiding something.
Unbuttoning my white dress shirt, I moved closer to the bed. “What are you wearing?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
I stopped in my tracks. For a moment my brain—and my cock—thought she really meant it, but then I remembered who I was dealing with here.
“Nothing special, I mean.” Her face turned beet-red.
“I liked your first answer better.” She tilted her face to look up at me as I towered over her. “Show me.”
She gaped up at me, as if unable to comprehend what those two words meant.
“Jesus Christ, Allegra. We’re going to be sharing a bed for the rest of our fucking lives. Show me what you’re wearing.”
Still, she clutched the blanket around her neck, looking like a scared little rabbit. Or wait—maybe she was being defiant? “You’d better not be wearing that fucking lingerie.”
“No, I’m not.”
I stared down at her, waiting. There was one way to prove that, and even she should be able to figure it out. At long last, she lowered the blanket.
My jaw dropped as I stared down at a nightgown that had probably been trendy in the 1860s. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s not the lingerie,” she said a bit defensively.
“I can see that.” I actually had to give her a few points for showing a little bit of backbone. But God, that nightgown. It covered more of her than the blankets had. There were ruffles at the neck and at the end of the long sleeves. No doubt the stupid gown went all the way down to her feet and then probably zipped up like a sleeping bag as an extra reminder that no men were allowed to touch her. “You look ridiculous.”
Pain flashed through her eyes, but again ... a tiny bit of backbone. “It’s not like I had a lot of options.”
That was true. I continued to unbutton my shirt as I stared down at my bride-to-be. It wasn’t like she could order something online. She had no money or credit cards. And even if she had, she couldn’t borrow a car and go to a store. Though Carmine had been teaching her to drive. Because that moron was head over heels for her. “You’re not wearing that in my bed.”
“I don’t have anything else,” she protested.
“Then sleep naked. I do.”
“I know.” Her gaze automatically dropped to my crotch, and I nearly grinned. Even the innocent liked to sneak a peek from time to time. Then she met my eyes again. “I don’t have anything else to wear,” she repeated.
“I offered a suggestion for that. It’s not like I haven’t seen a naked woman before.”
To my surprise, her eyes narrowed. “What does that even mean? That since you’ve seen naked women before, I should therefore feel completely comfortable prancing around in the nude?”
“It would make things easier if you did.” But she had a point.
“If you don’t want me wearing this, can I go back to my bed?”
A few minutes ago, I was pissed off enough to allow that, but now I needed to make sure she knew that in spite of her small attempts at defiance, she wasn’t the boss in here. Or anywhere. “No.”
“Then can I wear that?”
Surprise filled me. She was pointing at the white dress shirt I’d just taken off. “My shirt?”
“Yes.” Her cheeks pinked. “I saw it in a movie once. A woman wore her boyfriend’s shirt to sleep in.”
I handed it to her. “But you’d better wear only that.”
“Okay.” She climbed out of bed, and I was right: the edge of the nightgown swept the floor. I could’ve made her change in front of me, but the sooner that ugly gown was out of my sight, the better.
I stripped down to my black boxers while she was in the bathroom, and when she emerged, she stopped in her tracks.
So did I.
Fuck.
She looked fucking gorgeous. The white shirt was huge on her, of course, but it looked hot as hell. Her bare legs looked longer than usual, and the white of the shirt made her skin look even and tan. Her hair was long and loose, covering the soft rise of her breasts.
She was doing her own looking, too, at my body. I thought about taking off my boxers, but a timid thing like her might faint at the sight of a hard, male cock.
I ached to touch her, to erase the day’s frustrations by bottoming out inside her luscious body. But then my lust turned to irritation. She had the fucking buttons done all the way up to her neck. It covered as much of her narrow throat as the granny nightgown had.