Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 156(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 156(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
When we enter the first bedroom, I make a point of ignoring the bed. In the second bedroom, I do the same. By the third bedroom, I’m crying inside. By bedroom four, I’m starting to shake with the resistance it’s taking to ignore the fact that I have her in a house alone with seven fucking beds all screaming at me to mess up the perfectly made covers. Bedroom five I barely step foot in. Bedroom six I simply poke my head inside, and as I back up, I collide with Raya and jump out of my skin, feeling panic beginning to set in. “Sorry!” I blurt.
“My fault.” She rests her hand on my forearm, and a heat like no other burns my bloodstream. Our eyes meet. My hunger turns into starvation—starvation for her, for skin-on-skin contact. To get in her mind. But all that defies her request for remaining emotionless. And I know for sure I don’t need this complication in my life. My feelings right now are simply because of an aching cock and a misplaced hunger for answers to questions that I wish would fuck right off. I don’t trust women, and I definitely shouldn’t trust this mysterious, cagey woman. But is she fighting the gravitational pull that’s distorting everything, too? My God, I need to leave. Now.
I start to head for the stairs, feeling the walls closing in around me, but as I pass bedroom seven, my urgent pace grinds to a stop and I’m drawn inside. The world stops happening and I inhale, smelling her on every surface in the room. Once again, my reason abandons me. The bed, the clothes she had on last night lying on the back of a pink suede armchair, her heels kicked off at the side. The burning ache within me amplifies, and my head swims with the memory of every second I had her restrained and at my mercy. But somehow, now I realize that it was entirely me at her mercy. Just like now. This woman is stirring something in me.
I hear the light pad of her bare feet on the thick cream carpet and slowly cast my eyes to the side. She’s looking at me. Reading me. Absorbing me. What is she thinking?
“Fuck.” I breathe, and before I can rethink my intention, I’ve seized her and plastered my chest to hers, forcing her up against a nearby wall.
Our mouths, only an inch apart, fight for the same air. Reaching up to her face, I trace the line of her cheekbone, her gaze seeping into mine. My world stills, like those moments of frozen time when you can see with perfect clarity every tiny thing before you. When you can appreciate its beauty and marvel at the details.
I raise my forearms and rest them on the wall on either side of her head, caging her in, my body pushing into hers a little bit more. “Your eyes,” I whisper, searching them as she searches mine. “They were alive when I had you in that room.” That’s what was missing when I first saw her at the bar. Life. Perhaps even purpose. “You didn’t just want what I could give you. You wanted me. You want me now, too.” I can’t ignore the blinding sparkle in her gaze. They’re alive.
She nods as she breathes heavily in my face. “You were supposed to be cold.”
“Did I make you forget?”
“Yes.”
“Then I did half my job.” My eyes scan her face, taking their time. “Can you forgive me for failing on the other half of our deal?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why?”
“I was at Hux to avoid the complications of feelings. To get lost for a while without worrying about trust. I had planned on being just as cold and emotionless as I requested, but I couldn’t. Not with you. You weren’t supposed to be so amazing.”
“The sex?”
“No. Just…amazing. You…” She swallows and looks away, forcing me to nuzzle her face back toward mine.
“Tell me,” I demand, needing to hear it. Needed confirmation that I wasn’t alone in that room. That I’m not alone in this madness.
“You cared. You were tender through the roughness. Considerate. You made me feel like the world began and ended with me. I didn’t want any of that. But I liked it.”
It wasn’t something I could help. “And why didn’t you want any of those things, Raya?”
She shakes her head, her eyes dull, and I want to roar my frustration. And suddenly scared that my question might erase the shine of her gaze completely, I push my mouth to hers. It’s time for her to forget again, and for now I’m prepared to help her. Just for now, but I make a silent oath to myself. I will find out what this woman’s story is, if it’s the last thing I do.