Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 114584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 573(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 573(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
“Stop looking at me like that and come swim.”
“Um, I’d rather stay here on the side of the pool. I’m not a great swimmer,” I admit.
Puzzled, he asks, “You can’t swim?”
“I can, just not well. Like I said, I wasn’t allowed to swim often.”
“Come on then. Let me see. I won’t let you drown.”
“You sure?” I tease, while genuinely wondering if he would.
Cocking his head to the side, he studies me, kinda like I was studying him earlier but in a less sexual way.
“Do you trust me?” he asks, swimming closer, looking more and more like a shark.
I think for a moment before answering, my tongue becoming heavy. “Yes.”
“You hesitated.”
“Can you blame me? It would be very easy to make it look like a drowning, wouldn’t it?”
Julian’s features become icy as he treads water two feet in front of me. “Spoiler alert, if I wanted you dead, sweetheart, you’d already be dead.”
“Okay, but I still don’t want to drown.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he says, and then I feel his rough hands on my bare hips, dragging me toward him. “Let go of the side of the pool and trust me.” Looking over my shoulder, I eye my hand, which is slowly slipping from the edge of the pool. Trust or not trust? Warm breath fans against my cheek and ear. “Trust me like you did the other night when you let me eat your pussy.”
At his crude words, I squirm in the water, feeling them pulse in my center. How does he do that? How can he get me aroused with nothing more than his words?
I push off the side and start kicking my legs out. Using my arms, I push at the water, keeping myself afloat, but barely. I’m sure I look pretty ridiculous right now.
Julian doesn’t seem to care though and tugs me closer, lifting me, so I’m not chin-deep in the water. His face is inches from mine, the water beading against his skin, teasing me. Making me want to lick them away. Something about him makes my blood turn to molten lava.
I want him, need him, and that terrifies me so much because the last time I allowed myself to love a man, he sold me for ten million dollars.
22
Julian
Her pink tongue darts out over her bottom lip, and I’m tempted to kiss her, to bite that plump flesh. Her eyes are shiny, iridescent, and I know if I stare for too long, I’ll get sucked right into their depths.
“What did you think of me the first time you saw me?” I don’t know why I ask this question, but I have often wondered the answer. Maybe because seeing her for the first time was such a profound moment for me. It changed the course of my future. In an instant, I knew what I had to do.
“Honestly, I didn’t think much when I saw you at my mother’s funeral. I don’t even remember much from that time, but I do remember you being there. I thought you looked dangerous, but so did all the other men there. Your eyes stood out to me, though. I felt like you could see right through me. I still think you can.” Her eyes hold mine, and right in this second, it’s like the world around us melts away. It’s just us, floating in a pool, no worries, no revenge, no mafia.
“What about you?”
“I knew I had to have you. The very first moment I saw you, I knew.” It’s not a lie, but I will leave the other part out for now. The part where I wanted nothing from her than to use her for my revenge. Soon she’ll discover that all of this was nothing, a facade, and by then, she’ll be trapped, married, and bound by a vow and blood. Just like the mafia, there is no out in marriage, there is only death.
I want to ask her what she thought of me the second time she saw me, the time I stole her away from her father and everything she ever knew, but I already know the answer to that. I know she hated me and feared me in equal parts.
She hasn’t looked like that at me in a while. Her fear and hatred have turned into trust and calmness. It’s what I expected, what I had hoped for, but what I didn’t see coming is how much I would enjoy it.
I can’t help but wonder if I could somehow have both. Could I get my revenge on her father without breaking her trust, without breaking that fragile bond that has formed between us? The fact that I will eventually kill her father tells me, no, but maybe if she was in love with me, if I turned her against her father completely? I could keep this, whatever it is going on between us.