Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96957 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96957 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
“I see. So … you’re protecting me again? A month and no word from you, but tonight Jericho comes to watch over me?”
“What makes you think he ever stopped looking out for you?”
What the hell?
After I let that hit my heart and bounce off it—but not without making a little dent—I untied my tongue and said the only thing that made any sense. “I don’t need you to watch after me. I’ve been learning self-defense. I’m not the weak girl you saved behind the dumpster.”
His eyes narrowed a hint. “That’s always been an interesting assumption on your part.”
“Because it’s not true or because admitting it would be admitting that you killed a man?”
He retuned nothing for close to a minute before nodding to the door. “Go home. Sleep in your bed, not the front yard.”
“Someone else is in my bed. Sleeping or … something.”
For a girl who truly hated very few things or people, I hated how much I missed him. It wasn’t until that moment that the true impact of his absence in my life settled into my conscience with the grace of a bulldozer.
He shut his computer and sighed, staring down at it with a contemplative expression. “You can sleep on my sofa.”
I scuffed my boots along his floor until I was standing beside him. After a few moments of silence, he scooted his chair away from the table, allowing me to stand between his spread legs. I rested my ass on the edge of the table.
His gaze raked along my legs to my breasts, finally finding my face. “You’re not seducing me, Livy.”
Gah! I loved my name sliding from his full lips with that manly badass timbre to his voice. The kitchen fell silent again with the exception of the refrigerator humming. He smelled like a fresh shower and the most tempting prey.
I lifted one boot to his jean-clad leg, putting more weight on the table as I lifted my other boot to his other leg, the table beneath me creaking a bit. “You’re right. I’m not going to seduce you.” I slowly unlaced my boots and slipped them off, dropping them to the floor with one thud and then another. Unhooking my garters, I eased off my fishnet stockings one at a time.
He swallowed hard, jaw muscles tensing, eyes flared.
Sliding off the table, nestled between his legs, I bent down, brushing my lips along his ear, my hands folded behind my back so I wouldn’t touch him with anything but my mouth when I whispered, “Sweet dreams, Wylder.”
As I moved to stand straight again, his hand snaked up my back, fisting my ponytail, slowing my ascent as he lifted his back from the chair and followed my body—followed my exposed cleavage.
For the longest pause, he didn’t move a muscle, not one twitch—his breath hot on my chest, his hand still clenching my hair. “There’s a pillow and blanket in the trunk behind the sofa,” he murmured, releasing my hair.
I. Couldn’t. Fucking. Breathe.
It was like he lit me on fire and pointed to the extinguisher ten yards away.
I grunted a painful laugh through a long exhale, bent down, and gathered my boots and stockings. “You’re such a head case,” I mumbled. Shoving my way out between the caged area of his legs and the table, I headed to the door instead of his sofa. “I’m going to go fuck the first guy I find with a condom in his wallet. Night, Wylder.”
The second I got the door open six inches, his hand landed on it above my head, slamming it shut. I remained unblinking at it while he hovered so close to my backside, heat radiating from his body. My eyes closed when his forehead rested on the top of my head, rolling slowly side to side like he was in some sort of agony.
I didn’t move. I wasn’t lying … I would not seduce him. He would seduce me.
He would touch me.
He would kiss me.
He would surrender to me after months of holding his shield of emotionless bullshit.
His hands gripped the material to my onesie, his breaths quickening as he lifted his forehead pressed to the top of my SWAT hat. I stood stone-still, letting him peel the stretchy material down my body to my hips, leaving my breasts completely exposed. I sucked in a sharp breath when his hands covered them, my back arching to press my body into his touch.
It was torture. So slow. His grip firm, touching me with a need that felt like it was teetering on the edge of losing control.
My heart tried to have a full-on heart attack. My breaths chased each other so fast my lungs nearly exploded. When his head dipped, lips grazing my ear, my neck, my bare shoulder, I dropped my boots and stockings, pressing my hands flat to the door to keep from surrendering to my weak knees.