Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
The cruel woman took a step closer. “I’m not looking for serious, Walker.”
Aye, all women said that. Look at Chloe. “It’s too complicated. We’re friends. And you’re too young for me.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I’m twenty-seven this year. I have a child. I’m not exactly a baby.”
“We’re friends,” I repeated sternly. “So drop it.”
Hurt flashed across her face, and it punched me in the gut.
“I’m sorry if this was … Sorry for bothering you.” Sloane suddenly bolted past me.
Fuck. I should let her go.
My front door opened.
“Sloane.” I hurried after her, only to find her halted on my front walk, staring at the space where the Range Rover had been. Jamie had left. Obviously, he thought I had her.
“Just so typical,” Sloane muttered under her breath and started marching down my path toward the street.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” I went after her, my long strides eating up the distance between us.
“I can walk,” she threw over her shoulder. Her hair blew back from her face in the chilly breeze. Dark clouds above signaled rain.
“You are not walking.” I caught up to her and gently took hold of her biceps. Sloane tugged a little as she turned to face me. She wouldn’t look me in the eye.
Goddamn it.
“Get in the car. I’ll take you back to the cottage, and we’ll phone Jamie.”
She shrugged out of my hold. “What about your booty call?”
I’d already forgotten my lie. So I didn’t answer. I just gestured to the car and waited for her to get in it.
Seventeen
SLOANE
A woman should admit defeat when rejected by the man she wanted.
I flicked a hurt look at him as we drove through the village back to my cottage. The day had turned dreary like my mood. Drizzle speckled the windshield and clouds above had darkened the interior of the SUV.
Walker hadn’t called Jamie yet.
Brodan had been so sure Walker would say yes that I hadn’t expected this to backfire. Didn’t Walker believe me when I said I wanted it to be casual? Was that the issue? Because I’d caught him looking at my breasts several times in the past half hour. Walker wanted me. Right?
The SUV pulled up outside my empty cottage.
Despondency threatened, but determination edged it out.
One last shot. That’s how much I wanted the brooding bastard.
“I really meant it.” I stared into those aquamarine eyes with resolve. “I don’t want anything serious from you, and I’m not asking for a commitment. Just sex.”
The muscle in Walker’s jaw flexed, and it was a few lengthy seconds before he replied, “I’m not crossing that line with you.”
“Then give me a real reason why.”
His eyes flashed with frustration. “Because I’m not … I don’t do sweet and gentle, Sloane. I fuck. And I doubt, somehow, even if you say you only want casual, that you’re looking for what I’d give you.”
Hurt, worse than his rejection, scored through me. Was that how he saw me? As a tepid, lights-off, under the covers, single mom who needed to be gently made love to? But those other women … oh, he’d fuck them.
I felt not rejection, but indignation. He might find me attractive … but Walker didn’t see me as a truly sexual woman. He didn’t see me, period.
I scoffed, the sound bitter even to my ears. “You don’t know a thing about women, do you, Walker?” It was a rhetorical question.
But he looked annoyed. And confused. “I know enough.”
“Yeah?” I unclipped my seat belt. “Let me ask you a question … all those women you see as sexy enough to fuck … how many of them afterward suddenly wanted to date? Like Chloe, for example?”
Walker’s eyes narrowed. “Sexy enough?”
“I bet it’s a fair few. Because while you’re so sure those gorgeous, childless women are the ones who want to be wild and free in bed with no strings attached, it’s actually the opposite for many of them. They’re all out there desperately looking for love and lying to you about what they want in the hopes that while you’re fucking them, you’ll fall for them.
“But my priority is my kid. And while you might look at me and see an exhausted single mom who needs to get gently laid and have a so-so, satisfactory orgasm, it’s us single moms who genuinely want a guy to fuck them wild and hard and give us multiple orgasms. And then go home so we don’t have to explain you to our kids or deal with you on top of the millions of other things we have to deal with on the daily.
“But thank you.” I opened the car door, my expression disdainful. “For making me feel as attractive as a wet towel and proving once again that even the most perceptive males are clueless when it comes to women.” With that, I jumped out of his car and slammed the door behind me.