Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
“I want to devour you.” And I can see from the glistening of her eyes that she’s so up for that. “But I have to fucking work.” Or get to writing a list. Plus, the sooner she’s done what she needs to do in the extension to move the project forward, I can get her home. I might not let her leave, either. It’s Monday tomorrow. A workday. Can she work from home? My home? I’d promise to leave her alone so she could.
It’s a promise I’d never be able to keep.
I kiss her and rip myself away, going to my desk and collecting a pad and a pencil and holding them out to her.
“I’ll head up to the extension.” She gets up and accepts, and my sulky bones just can’t bear to see her go. So I make a play for her, grabbing her waist, and she laughs, trying to wrestle free.
“Kiss me,” I order.
“I just did.”
Wrong. I kissed her. Big difference. “Don’t make me ask again, Ava,” I warn, deadly serious. She should do everything I suggest. You’re not suggesting, you idiot. You’re demanding. I cock my head in expectation, and she smiles, giving in to me. She’s learning. And there’s something about receiving a kiss rather than giving one.
When she opens the door, my trusty John is waiting.
“I know where I’m going, John,” Ava says, sounding tired. She might do. But I’m covering all bases.
“’S’all good, girl,” he grunts.
I close the door and look across to the cabinet. All of the bottles I broke in my rage have been replaced. And I feel nothing. No hate for the bottles. No desire to grab one and sink it. But I would love to wring Sarah’s fucking neck. She’s quite happy for me to fuck my way through The Manor because I’ll be close. Unattached. The same man I’ve been for sixteen years—not in love with her, but not in love with anyone else. Ava is a woman who could take me away from this life, therefore take me away from Sarah. She wants me to fail? Surely not. And yet, I know Sarah. She’s as broken as I am, but she handles her guilt differently.
I sigh and sit down at my desk, checking through my emails quickly. Nothing important. Good. I pull out a pad and pen and write at the top, The Path to Redemption. Number one: Ava O’Shea. I smile and sit back, tapping the end of the pen on my bottom lip as I stare at her name for a long, long time, my mind speeding. I tilt my head. Pout. Then lean forward and cross out her surname, replacing it with mine. “Ava Ward,” I say to myself, chewing my bottom lip.
The door swings open, John marches in, and I quickly pull the cover of the pad over the first page. He looks stressed. John doesn’t do stressed.
“You need to tell her, motherfucker,” he says, slamming the door on a deafening thwack.
I recoil. “Yes, I know that. I wish people would stop stating the fucking obvious.”
“A member just stumbled out of a room, his dick practically hanging out.”
I sit up straight in my chair. “Did Ava see?”
“Yes, she fucking saw.” He drops into the chair opposite me. “Poor thing didn’t know where to look.” He leans forward threateningly. “And she seemed rather curious about the doors to the communal room.”
Bollocks. I rub at my forehead, getting a heavy dose of John’s stress. “I’ll sort it,” I assure him. “Where’s Sarah?”
“I don’t know. Probably having something pumped, sucked, or tucked. She said she’d be here by noon.” He gets up and rounds the desk, helping himself to my laptop. “Am I going to be blessed with your presence for long?”
I huff to myself as he unlocks the screen and his fat fingers tap clumsily across the keys. “Long enough.”
“Anyone would think you don’t like being here.”
“Why would I want to be here and be stressed when I can lock myself away in Lusso with Ava and be happy?”
“That’s because when you’re with Ava, you’re living a fucking lie, moron.”
Moron? “I prefer motherfucker,” I grumble.
He turns his face to me, removing his wraparounds. “Tell her.”
“Okay,” I bark, flicking my hand out in my annoyance, sending the pad to the floor. And isn’t it just typical that it falls in such a way that when John dips to pick it up, the words “Ava O’Shea Ward” stare up at him.
Silence.
Fuck.
I die a million times, cringing my arse off, shifting in my chair. Caught red-handed. He slowly rises with the pad in his hands, staring at it. “I was just fucking about,” I say, mortified. “I was bored.” I look away, feeling my face flame. I can literally hear him mentally calling me out as a crazy fucker. I can’t bear his quiet judgments.