Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“You don’t seem nervous about anything. Ever.”
Clayton projected a kind of detachment. An unruffled coolness. He was the picture of control. Except… I thought of that time in his office. And again in his condo. That last date when he’d cooked for me.
He hadn’t been cool then. His hands had shaken when his fingers combed through my hair, when he held my skull in his palms. His voice had broken when he moaned, “So good, Veronica. You suck me so good.”
Between my legs I suddenly throbbed.
“You’re beautiful.”
It was weird. Well, maybe not weird, but he always said I was beautiful. He never said I looked beautiful. Every compliment I’d ever gotten on my looks had been about the dress I was wearing or how I’d done my hair. The implication being that without adornment I was not beautiful.
But Clayton was not commenting on the fancy Oscar de le Renta gown. Or my hair. Or the smoky eyes Sabrina had given me.
He was talking about me. Myself. My body. The skin I lived in.
It wasn’t something you noticed until someone said it to you repeatedly. Especially a man like him. Not just that he was handsome or that he was sexy.
It was that he was never wrong.
“This dress,” he whispered, and his fingertips brushed over the strapless bodice. Not quite touching my breasts but close enough that I knew he was doing it on purpose. “Is perfect for you.”
He hummed low in his throat. And his hand ran from my breast down my waist to my hip. The dress was seven thousand layers of pink tulle with gold sparkles and crystals sewn into every layer. The bodice was fitted but the skirt flared out at my waist. Not poufy, just…forgiving.
It was a beautiful dress and I felt beautiful in it. Except that it was too tight.
“I have something for you,” he said.
“Clayton,” I sighed. “You don’t have to give me anything.”
The ring on my finger, the orgasms. The happiness I felt. All of it was enough. Except…well, he could tell me he loved me. That would be something. A gift.
Two months ago, after we’d had sex for the first time (after the first two of my orgasms), we were lying in the big king-size bed in his home, sweating into his sheets, and I’d blurted that I loved him. He’d kissed me, given me the third orgasm. And the next day he proposed.
Maybe he didn’t love me. Maybe he just liked me a lot. Maybe he was pretty sure that he would love me at some point, and just wasn’t there yet.
Or maybe…just maybe…he did love me, and he just didn’t know how to crack through that armor he had around him.
I voted that option. Because there was no reason for him to do the things he did unless he felt something real for me. And because I didn’t want it to be awkward, I hadn’t told him I loved him again. Except a few times when he’d fallen asleep before me, the dark splash of his hair falling down on his forehead. Those rude-boy lips parted as he breathed.
At that moment I couldn’t resist and the words slipped out in a whisper against the skin of his shoulder. Secrets I kept in the night.
Clayton pulled an oblong box out of the inside pocket of his tuxedo jacket and my stomach fluttered. He was so good at picking out jewelry for me. My engagement ring was an antique Tiffany-set sapphire. Elegant, with a bit of filigree around the impressive stone to make it unique. It was my favorite thing in the world.
He handed me the box with the half curl of his lips that made him seem so boyish. I wanted to hug him. Tousle his hair. Whisper I love you against the pulse in his neck.
“Open it,” he said.
“You don’t have to—”
“I know.”
I opened the box and in it was a beautiful necklace. Antique. Victorian, maybe. A long gold chain with a diamond and pearl pendant. A giant diamond.
“I saw it and thought of you.” He took it out of the box to put it around my neck where the chain and jewels glittered and gleamed in the lights and mirror. The touch of his fingers against my nape made my breath hitch.
“I have something for you, too,” I said, and stepped away from his touch over to where I had put my clothes. My jeans and Converse. My purse. I pulled out the box for him.
This might be a mistake. So dumb. I mean, the man had no need for something as old-fashioned as this. But…I saw it and thought of him. I held the box out.
He seemed weirdly flabbergasted. Like he didn’t know what to do with the package I was offering him. Or maybe like he didn’t want it. He looked at the box and then at me, his armor totally in place.