Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
He grimaced. “Inside somewhere. I don’t know. I don’t care.”
“Maybe you should return to her.”
He straightened, sighing. “Listen, Evie, I can’t stop thinking about you. I don’t date—”
“What about Dakota? This is your third date. Don’t you call that dating?”
He laughed. “No. I’m definitely not dating her. This is a three-night stand and it ends today.”
“You sure?” I said.
“Yes, I’m sure. What about you and Blake?” he said almost angrily. He was angry?
“Blake and I aren’t your business, but if you must know, this is our first date.”
Xavier stepped closer. “So you haven’t…?”
“Haven’t what?” I asked.
“Haven’t slept with him?”
My eyes widened. “Of course not! I haven’t even kissed him, or anyone else for that matter. I don’t move on as quickly as you do, Xavier.” And I shouldn’t even have agreed to the date with Blake, I realized now. My emotions were too all over the place to drag someone else into the mess.
Xavier ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “That’s what I was trying to tell you before. I don’t date, you know that, but we could be…”
“Could be what?” I challenged.
He didn’t say anything but his eyes moved to my chest, and the look in them sent a sweet tingle through my body.
I took a step back. “I could be your assistant with benefits? Is that what you have in mind?”
He frowned as if my vehemence surprised him. Did he really think I would agree to something like that?
“Right. That would work out well for you. I’d still organize your life and you could sleep with me whenever you felt like it, and as an added bonus you wouldn’t even have to be faithful and could keep up the one-night stands.”
He raised one cocky eyebrow. “You’d get mind-blowing sex out of the arrangement. It could be worse.”
“You just don’t get it. All that matters to you is the next high, the next conquest. For you it’s all about having fun. But I’m not like that. For me sex is about intimacy, about allowing closeness and about trust. It’s about caring and loving.”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t have slept with me.”
Tears gathered in my eyes. My nails dug into my palms in an attempt to hold on to my composure. I had never really cried in front of Xavier, and I never would.
Xavier’s expression froze. His gray eyes flickered with guilt. “Evie, I don’t…”
“Date, I know, Xavier,” I snapped, tired of hearing him say it.
“People expect certain things from me. I have a reputation to uphold. Dating you would—”
“Ruin your reputation? Heaven forbid Xavier—The Beast—Stevens would be seen with a dumpling.”
“Dumpling? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. I’m too fat to date someone like you.” For the first time tonight I wished I had chosen a different outfit, not one that accentuated my curves like this.
Xavier stepped closer, engulfing me with his tantalizing scent, making me wish for something that wasn’t going to happen. “You are fucking gorgeous, Evie. Your tits are marvelous and so is your butt and your hips. You are soft in all the right places.”
I peered up at him, my heart filling with hopeless emotions. He cupped my cheeks and kissed me, soft and passionate. I wanted more, wanted all of him, and that was the problem. I pulled back before I could lose myself. “I can’t. Not like this. Not without commitment. I don’t want to be like all the other girls again.”
“You are nothing like them,” he murmured, his hands still against my cheeks, warm and gentle.
I could feel myself falling into his eyes again. “But you treated me like them.”
“I didn’t know how to act around you. I…I was confused.”
“Confused? You?”
He smirked. “Because it was you. And because you were my first virgin. I never wanted the burden of having that kind of important place in a woman’s memory. And then that virgin was you.”
Ouch. I stepped out of his grasp. “Sorry about having burdened you like that,” I said with a roll of my eyes.
“No,” he said in a low voice that sent a sweet tingling down my spine again. I was utterly screwed. “I have to say I like being the only one.”
“The only one would imply that there will be no others, but as we’re not even dating, there will eventually be someone else.”
Xavier’s face darkened. He gripped my hips. “I don’t want there to be someone else. Not Blake, and not anyone else either.”
I shook my head. “Then we’re at an impasse.”
“Evie,” Xavier said in a pained voice.
I drew back from him and he dropped his hands from my hips. “No. Xavier, there’s only one way you can have me, and that’s in a real relationship and not as an affair.”
He didn’t stop me when I turned on my heel and walked off. My heart was thudding wildly in my chest, and I felt hot and flustered. When I found Blake at the bar, nursing a drink, trying to ignore the crowd of females who were attempting to catch his gaze, a wave of guilt washed over me. “I’m sorry,” I told him.