Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 121723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
He said nothing else as I hurried from his office.
FIFTEEN
MACALISTER
DAMON LYNCH’S BIRTHDAY WAS A BLACK-TIE AFFAIR, and it was good to see the grounds bustling with people. It’d been three years since Royce and Marist’s wedding, the last big event hosted here, and I was anxious to create a new memory of the Hale estate for the people of Cape Hill.
I stood in my entryway, wearing my tuxedo and a hostile look as I watched the valets outside laugh and joke around with each other. I wasn’t paying them to have a good time and act like unprofessional idiots. Guests would start arriving soon, and first impressions were everything.
Especially tonight.
Movement at the top of the stairs caught my attention, and I glanced up, expecting it to be Lucifer—although the cat often hid when there was commotion in the house. Instead, it was a different gorgeous creature in black.
Sophia had been here at the house all day, although I’d barely seen her. She’d arrived early this morning, wearing minimal makeup and yoga pants, just as the rental furniture trucks were parking down by the stables.
I wanted to tell her I hated what she was wearing, but it would have been a complete lie. The stretchy fabric clung to her shapely legs and tight backside, and every lustful thought I’d had about her over the past three weeks set upon me with a furious crash.
She had information I needed, yet she withheld. I needed her in Aspen with me, yet she stayed behind. And the desire to give her a hundred different orgasms in a hundred different ways was threatening to swallow me whole.
I needed.
And I was going to take.
Spending the weekend pretending to care about anything other than what she was doing at any moment solidified my decision. Once she gave me everything she’d been holding back, I’d do the same in return. It was a game, and I always won, no matter the cost.
When I put my mind to something, I was unstoppable. As she’d told me that day in the penthouse restaurant, she had a way of getting what she wanted—had she realized the same was true for me?
Late in the afternoon, Sophia had disappeared into one of the guest rooms with two women, likely a hair and makeup team, and twenty minutes ago the duo had departed the house. She’d remained upstairs, changing into her gown, and I relished the idea of her being undressed under my roof for a second time.
Perhaps I’d make that a rule at some point. If we were alone in my house, I’d require she be naked. I wanted access to her body at all times, nothing hidden from me.
The black dress she wore was strapless and fit her as if it had been painted on, all the way down below her hips, before flaring out to the floor. The outer layer was sheer lace, and as she moved down the stairs, it trailed behind her like a dark veil. Her blonde hair was twisted back and pinned up off her shoulders, except for the carefully placed strands softly curling to frame her face.
Her makeup was dramatic and sultry.
She didn’t look twenty-six. She looked . . . timeless.
Once again, my ridiculous heart forgot how to function. Sophia descended gracefully to the bottom of the steps, fixing me with her gaze, and I was struck by the idea that the sight of me in my tuxedo was somehow having the same effect on her as she held over me. Her chest rose and fell with her hurried, uneven breath.
Her voice was hushed. “Does this meet your approval?”
Since she hadn’t sent me a picture. Perhaps she wanted to show it to me in person and knew she could return to the room upstairs and adjust if something weren’t to my liking.
“No,” I said. She hadn’t met my approval. “You’ve exceeded it.”
The dark eye-makeup made her blue eyes deeper, and they melted at my words. It was dangerous the way she made me feel. All-powerful and mighty, as if I didn’t need to control every inch of my world because she gave me hers.
“You look great, by the way,” she said. “Are you ready?”
“Of course.” I kept my tone light, so she’d know I wasn’t serious. “You are the one behind schedule. I thought I was going to have to come fetch you.”
I watched her reaction carefully, enjoying how she blushed at the idea. “It’s your cat’s fault. He’s needy,” she said with a shy smile. “But he’s looking much better.”
“Yes, he is,” I agreed. When Sophia blinked in surprise, I paused. “What?”
She grinned. “I thought the ‘animal’ was Royce’s.”
I gave her a hard look. “I don’t like what you’re implying.”
But she just laughed, and the bright sound was music that didn’t play in this house when I had lived in it. I’d forgotten how nice it could be, the sound echoing in the spacious room.