Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
I don’t take to judgment well.
Anyone who wants to judge me can fuck right off. And I tell him as much.
“I’m not judging you, sweetheart,” he says. “I’m just a little terrified of you right now.”
And he should be.
Because I’m pulling one over on him too. While I play this game and tell him that I’m right. While I tell him not to judge me.
I’m lying to him and fucking him over too.
And while I’m thinking about all of this, he’s only thinking about me.
“I don’t know if I can handle seeing ye flirt with those other blokes,” he says, and it’s honest and...
Fuck.
Why does he always need to be so goddamned honest?
“It doesn’t mean anything,” I assure him.
“That’s exactly the problem.” He rubs a hand over the back of his neck and paces my kitchen. “I never know when ye’re being real, Scarlett.”
I suppose that’s true. I don’t know half the time myself.
I’m a compulsive liar. It’s what I do for a living. It’s what I do to survive.
It’s second nature. As easy as breathing. To lie even when I don’t need to.
Sometimes, it just feels good. To be fooling everyone else.
I’ve been lying to Rory since the day that I met him. He doesn’t know a real thing about me. And now that I think about it, I don’t know a single person that does.
“It doesn’t matter who we’re playing with,” I say. “Because when you start winning big, I’ll just decide that la-de-fucking-da… that’s the guy I want to go home with.”
Rory reaches down to grab my ass and pull me against him. He likes to do that, and he’s hard, already.
His lips move to my ear, his voice low and husky.
“Ye’re so sure I’m going to win big, aye?”
“Course I am, silly.” I pull back just enough to let him see my face. “Because I’m going to be giving you the signals all night long.”
Lies, lies, lies… they spill from my lips like lava.
And he swallows them like sugar instead of the poison they really are.
“There’s just one more thing,” I tell him.
“What?”
I dangle the blonde wig from my fingers and give him a weak smile.
“You’ll be going home with this girl tonight. I know you prefer blondes after all.”
Thirteen
Rory
The first order of business in NYC is to check into the hotel. It’s just down the street from the club that Scarlett picked, and the hotel is also Scarlett’s choice. She’s familiar with Manhattan and I don’t know how.
She’s edgier here. And she doesn’t have a Boston accent and now I’m wondering if this is where her hardness comes from. She could be a New Yorker.
We check in and the bell man follows us up to the room, discarding our luggage and checking out Scarlett’s arse. She notices but doesn’t care and I notice and tell him to piss off.
“You like it?” she asks when he’s gone.
The room is fine. Grand even. But little hell raiser here doesn’t make small talk and I know something is definitely up with her.
“Only the best for you, Satan.”
She smiles and gets straight down to business. “I’ll walk in first and choose the table. You can grab a drink and join us.”
She’s already bolting to the door, but I catch her around the waist and stop her.
“Scarlett.”
“Yes?”
“If anything starts going sideways… and I mean even the vaguest notion that it’s going sideways, you come straight back here to this room and wait for me. Do ye understand?”
“Sir, yes sir.” She salutes me again.
“This isn’t a joke. I want to hustle with ye, sweetheart. But I need to know ye aren’t going to be reckless about it either.”
“I’ll be a good girl,” she promises. “Scout’s honor.”
Now my cock is saluting her and I don’t need her spouting off this sort of shite before we even get to the tables.
Watching other blokes eye-fuck her all night is not going to be an easy thing to stomach. And I really think I might give in to my baser urges tonight and fuck her so thoroughly she will never want to play these games again.
We leave and I follow Scarlett down the street, a few feet behind. My eyes are on her arse and so are every other man’s and I want them to know that she’s mine. But Scarlett is like a bird and the slightest change in the weather will have her flying away.
The man in me wants to show her she can still get her kicks without putting herself at real risk. At least not with me beside her.
She told me she wants to get out of trick rolling. And I’m going to make it happen. From the moment I met her, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.
I can be patient. And she will learn to trust me. She will come to understand that I’m not bullshitting her like every other lad. In the process, I’m liable to get pricked more than a few times by her shield of thorns.