Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Anger churns in my belly and I try once again to escape his embrace. I barely move. He’s too big and too strong for me to push myself out of this confrontation.
“I thought I could protect you by staying away, but that didn’t work,” he confesses. “My father still has his claws in your family. I need you close, but I don’t know how close I dare.”
“Living with you is pretty close.”
“Probably too close, but I need to be able to protect you.”
That’s twice he’s made that statement and this time, I bristle and press my hand to his chest. “Is that what this is? A way to protect me?”
He covers my hand with his. “You know better. Do you really think I’d give you that ring and tell you the story behind it if I didn’t want to marry you, Alana? If I didn’t want to see the look in your eyes when I told you what I’d wanted then, and what I have always wanted with you.”
“And what did you see, Damion? What do you see now?”
“A woman who doesn’t believe I’ll be here tomorrow.”
“Will you?”
“I need to know nothing can blow back on you.”
My gut twists in painful knots. “That’s not the answer I want, and most importantly, it’s not the answer I need to be able to say yes to living with you. It sounds like an excuse.”
“It’s not a damn excuse. I’m standing here, right here, right now, telling you it’s bigger than that, Alana. It’s so damn much more.”
In that moment, it’s easier for me to believe he’s afraid of what I might learn than afraid of a real future with me. Maybe because it’s true. Maybe because it’s what I want to believe. “The part where I’m not the little girl next door anymore just doesn’t seem to compute with you and maybe it never will.”
“No,” he says, “you’re not the little girl next door. You’re the woman I want in my bed every day when I wake up.”
He shrugs out of his jacket, and everything inside me screams, “Yes, please, let’s stop talking. Let’s get naked.” My sex clenches, and there is this need inside me for this man that has existed for what feels like my entire life. It’s pure craving, and that craving doesn’t care about heartache, rings, business agreements, or even living arrangements.
I reach for his silver tie and tug it free, the silk pooling on the ground as surely as I’m melting in my own high heels.
His hands settle possessively on my hips, scorching me right through the thin black silk of my blouse. There’s possessiveness in the way he holds me, the air charges around us, and my knees tremble with the intensity of what I share with this man. “God, woman,” he murmurs. “What do you do to me and how do you do it over and over and over again? Tell me.” But he doesn’t give me the chance to argue the reality, which is much different than his version of who does what.
In my world, it’s him who messes with my head and emotions.
Him who always leaves.
Or maybe it’s not like that at all.
I don’t know if I’m objective right now.
He shifts our lower bodies, melding us intimately close, hips to hips, and I am breathless with the press of his thick erection against my belly. My teeth worry my bottom lip. What am I doing with Damion again? Why am I offering my heart up for destruction again? “I should run away,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he says. “You should. But don’t.” He catches the hem of the black silk and his warm fingers press to the delicate skin beneath it.
He’s all man now, confident and sure of what he wants, a man who gets what he wants, and I’ve always admired those traits in him. In contrast, I’ve always known what I wanted, but nothing I swore I’d make happened, happened. I’m not an attorney. I’m not his wife. Not that you make marriage happen, but then I never thought that’s how it would go. I just thought we’d end up together, like that’s what the universe had in store for us.
Damion leans in closer and presses his cheek to my cheek, his lips to my ear. “Stop thinking whatever you’re thinking.” He eases back, his dark eyes meeting mine. “We’ve been through hell, but we found our way back to each other.”
His fingers caress a path over my skin until he’s pulling my blouse over my head and tossing it aside, his gaze raking over my nearly naked breasts. “Have I told you how many times I’ve fantasized about you, Alana?” he murmurs, his finger teasing my nipple where it puckers beneath the barely-there lace.
A heavy breath trembles from my lips with the clench of my sex. I’m struggling to remember why this is a bad idea, why we are a bad idea, and already Damion is unhooking my bra, dragging it away. “Did you fantasize about me, too, Alana?”