Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 202770 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1014(@200wpm)___ 811(@250wpm)___ 676(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 202770 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1014(@200wpm)___ 811(@250wpm)___ 676(@300wpm)
“And Brody?”
“I inherited the castle because I’m the controlling partner in the main whiskey operation. Brody doesn’t own or live in the castle. I do.” I stroke hair from her face and tilt her gaze up to mine. “I want you, Emma. So fucking much that I don’t even know what to do next but keep you close. And that doesn’t have to mean here. We can go to a hotel.”
“No.” Her hand catches my tie. “No, I don’t want to go to a hotel. I want to be here. I want to see where you live and know who you are. And your brother doesn’t get to run me off.” She presses to her toes and touches her lips to mine, and just that easily, I’m hot and hard for this woman. But it’s more than that. I am so fucking into this woman that I don’t want to know the moment she walks away. And if my brother has his way, she will. I cup her head, and my tongue licks into her mouth, sweeping deep, the taste of her, all sweet passion and demand, but there’s more this time. There’s a tentativeness that wasn’t there on that dock, a little piece of her she’s holding back when I want all of her. A tentativeness I plan to wash away. “Let’s go inside, baby,” I murmur, ready to do just what I’d fantasized about minutes ago. Strip her naked. Remove the barriers. Get back to the two of us and keep it that way.
“Yes,” she says. “Let’s go inside.” She pushes away from me, and as if defying that wall I’ve sensed present, she doesn’t hesitate. She walks right inside.
I follow her, shut us inside, and arm the security system, all while I watch her take in the small basement foyer, with an elevator in front of her and a set of stairs to her right. “The elevator doesn’t work,” I say, once we’re safely sealed inside.
She whirls around to face me. “I thought you said the power was only an issue outside?”
“The elevator isn’t a power issue. My mother had it dismantled. She was claustrophobic and hated it.”
“Oh. Do you know why?”
“She fell in a hole on the lower end of the property when she was a kid and almost died.”
Her eyes go wide, her voice grave. “I see. That had to have been horrible. This castle is magnificent and—” Her voice trails away.
I step to her, my hands settling on her waist. “Scary?”
“Full of your family history,” she amends.
“And scary.”
“Tragic.”
“Indeed,” I say, and she’s hit about ten fucking nerves. She has no idea just how tragic. My eyes shut as memories try to beat their way in, but I don’t let them have their way with me. My brother’s words, his warnings about the Knight family, also trying to beat their way in.
“Jax?”
At Emma’s voice and the touch of her hand on my chest, I open my eyes, a punch of awareness between us with that connection. Suddenly, it’s me who wants out of my head, the way I’d sensed Emma had on the dock. It’s me that is cupping her head and lowering my mouth to claim hers. It’s me who’s drinking her in with a demand that refuses to be ignored. I want her. I want her now. And I want all of her, no limits. No inhibitions.
That’s the escape she’d asked me for on the dock.
That’s the escape that I’m going to give her right here, in this castle tonight.
Chapter forty-eight
Jax
Still kissing Emma, I walk her backward and press her to the wall just beside the elevator, and somehow, her back ends up on the call buzzer for the car. Of course, it works, when the car itself doesn’t, just to be a pain in my ass right now. It starts to screech, and Emma gasps, jolting with the poorly timed, ridiculously loud sound. I move her over two inches, punch the damn thing and lower my mouth to hers again. “It’s the elevator alarm,” I tell her and already my mouth is back on her mouth, my fingers walking her skirt up her legs until I’m cupping her backside.
She moans, a soft, sweet, drive-me-fucking-wild moan, that has me pressing her forward, arching her hips and settling the thick ridge of my erection into just the right spot. My cellphone rings, and I want to throw the thing across the room. I catch the hem of Emma’s blouse and pull it from her skirt. “Jax,” she murmurs, catching my hands. “Your phone.”
“Fuck my phone and my damn brother for what he did to you tonight.” I lean in and kiss her. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”
“So are you,” she replies, and that’s all I need.
I turn her and pull my jacket off her shoulders, tossing it to the ground. My phone stops ringing, thank fuck. My hand goes to the zipper on her skirt, tugging it down. She glances over her shoulder. “Here?”