Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
He took a step, then another. “I do not understand what you base this theory on.”
“I know, but there’s no harm in trying it, is there? It’s me opening myself up to you. What’s the harm?”
Studying him, I read in his expression that he couldn’t think of one—which was always my genius love’s undoing. His drive to take the logical course of action worked in my favor. And he once said I didn’t know him.
Fixed on me, he moved to the couch, slowly setting himself down. I pushed the coffee table aside as he did the many mornings he alternated between spanking my bottom raw, and fingering me to countless orgasms.
“Okay,” I said, nudging his legs apart as I positioned between them. “What do you want to know?”
Jacques pointedly grasped my hips and moved me back, edging me out of his space. “What did you study when you went to school here as yourself?”
Of all the things I thought he’d start with, I wasn’t expecting that. It took me a beat to answer. “I... studied marketing.”
He nodded, expression unreadable. “So, you never wanted the farm.”
“It’s not that simple.” Keeping to my promise, I slowly parted the buttons on my blouse. “I loved growing up on my farm, and I loved my life. But my parents moved out of Bedlam after Rainey was born. I remembered our life in Chicago. Weekend trips to the zoo. Movie theater nights. Strolling with a hot dog in one hand and little Rainey’s in the other.
“We were visiting Gran on vacation when that stupid, idiot drunk crashed into Mom and Dad. The entire course of my life changed in one moment, and it was always in my head that one day I’d get it back,” I whispered. “I’d go back home to Chicago and leave the place that took my parents.”
My top fluttered to his feet.
“I wasn’t worried about the farm because Gran was strong as an ox, and Rainey planned to take over for her. Raise her family there like generations of de Souzas. When I was lost, I just kind of...” I shrugged helplessly. “Tried to give us that dream. It didn’t work, of course, because Gran was still gone.”
Jacques silently took in my explanation. “The mind can go to incredible lengths to protect itself.”
I grabbed a sliver of hope trying to get through, and shoved it back down. That sounded like understanding, but Jacques was a closed-off man. He gave nothing easily.
“What else do you want to know?” I inched closer to him, and was put right back where I was.
Nothing was easy with him.
“We were your first.”
I stilled with my fingers on my pants button. The Bedlam Boys were massively, pathologically, and at times adorably, possessive. They’ve made threats against imagined lovers more than once.
“Cairo can confirm that you were. He said he was too sentimental to wipe my virgin blood from his cock the first day.”
“But...” he growled.
I wiggled my pants over my hips, noting his gaze followed its path for all that he wanted to appear unaffected.
“But that was the only first of mine left to take.”
Jacques’s lips peeled back from his teeth.
“You can’t blame me for things I did before I met you guys.”
“Can’t I?”
A tiny grin teased the corner of my mouth. “No, that would be illogical.”
“Give me their names.”
“They’d have graduated by now,” I said, kicking my pants on his lap. “Lucky for them.”
“Then, there’s no harm in giving me their names.”
I chuckled. “How about I move this along, so we don’t get stuck on this one. What’s my favorite color? Blue.” I loosed the clip from my hair, letting it rain around my shoulders. “What’s my favorite show? Stranger Things.” I took off a sock. Just one.
“What’s my favorite book? The Book Thief.” That got Jacques the other sock. I was down to nothing but my bra and panties. “Do I like to be spanked?
“No.”
Jacques cocked a brow. “Tough.”
“At least not for the same reason,” I said, chuckling.
I nudged his legs apart again. Jacques didn’t stop me. I straddled his lap, and still, he didn’t stop me.
“Before, I happily put my ass up and accepted punishment because I was riddled with guilt. You guys both eased my pain and replaced it with pleasure. But I didn’t remember what Scott did to me at the time. I also forgot that grief changed me into the hardest version of myself, and I no longer had any mercy for bullies who pushed me around because they thought I was just another faceless farmgirl.
“The true me would’ve hunted down Scott Cavendish a long time ago, Jacques, so why would I feel an ounce of guilt over the man begging me to kill him? As for framing Cairo, the guy made both a terrible and arousing first impression on me. He screamed bully, and he’s the son of the man I hate most in this world.”