Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 27597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
“What?” I whisper, shaken.
“Mine. Permanently. Or I burn it all down,” he says succinctly, leaning forward across the table. “Is that what you want to hear? That I’m fighting to appear civilized and patient, so I don’t scare you off, Ashley? No one has ever challenged those qualities in me. Ever. But God help me, I want the last thing your husband sees before he dies to be me fucking your brains out. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Yes,” I whisper, shivering so severely and with such a rush of heat, my teeth chatter a bit. “Believe me, I never expected to want to belong to any man, but you gave me the power of choice. And there’s no other choice but you.”
Hope is alive on his face, but he struggles to keep it from spreading. “As your therapist, I’m honor bound to point out…” His voice is a scrape. “There are other choices.”
“Such as?”
“Total freedom. From me. From any man.” He closes his eyes, his grip tightening on my knee. “I am trying not to let this possessiveness beat me, but I worry I will lose the battle. I’ll become everything I am fighting to keep you away from.”
My heart is hammering. “Maybe possessiveness is okay, as long as…”
Blue eyes impale me. “As long as what?”
“As long as it’s balanced with respect. Trust. Kindness.”
“I will give you those things,” he vows, his thumb swiping across my thigh, just beneath the hem of my dress. “Don’t forget about pleasure, angel.”
“I’d never forget that, Daddy,” I breathe. “Not when you give it to me so well.”
His jaw locks, his fist twisting in the material of my dress. “We haven’t even gotten started, little girl. Tonight, that changes. Eat.”
CHAPTER 11
Caleb
My blood is set to high as I take Ashley’s delicate hand in mine, walking her into the air-conditioned hotel lobby, the sound of piano music and low conversations surrounding us, along with the scent of expensive pine. I could have driven the hour back to Lunson and made love to Ashley for the first time in my bed—and maybe I should have. The foreign setting of a hotel only amplifies the illicitness of our relationship.
Or the perception of illicitness, anyway.
From the outside looking in, I’m an older man bringing another man’s much younger wife to a hotel, so I can fuck her without getting caught.
From the inside, however, our relationship is far different.
I’m a man who has climbed over the fence of obsession and come down on the other side, an endless field in front of me. And she’s given me permission to run free in that field, allowing my infatuation with her to deepen. No end in sight.
She has confessed that she wants to be mine.
Our feelings for each other are authentic. Unexpected. Concentrated.
In short, there is no way in hell I could have made it home, and fucking her in a five-star hotel room is better than pulling over to slake this lust in the parking lot of a rest stop.
I need her with an immediacy that defies description.
As I lead her to the front desk and she’s openly ogled by every single man in the lobby, my teeth set themselves on edge, a jealous beast awakened inside of me. She scoots closer to my side when we arrive at reception and I ask the clerk for a room for the night, setting my credit card down on the marble counter. Then I put my arm around Ashley’s shoulders, tucking her against me securely into my side. Kissing her forehead while I cow every man in the room with a death stare.
She’s mine.
She chose me of her own free will.
Fuck off.
The clerk and I exchange a few words, before she runs my credit card and hands me a room key, not a hint of speculation on her face…
Though I can’t say the same for the couple that joins us in the elevator.
Thinking we’re going to be alone, I haul Ashley up against me, indulging myself with her mouth, because it has been far too long since we kissed. She presses up on her toes, purring as I maul her to appease the jealous lion still pacing inside of me, my hands slipping beneath her dress to cradle and knead her sweet ass through her panties—and I’m in the process of tugging down the waistband, so I can feel the supple flesh of her cheeks against my palms, but the elevator doors halt in their process of closing, a couple in their forties stepping on, the woman rearing back when she spies us in our compromising position. She and her partner enter the elevator, exchanging a not-so-subtle glance.
I begin the painful process of separating myself from the now-public intimacy with Ashley—at least, momentarily—but she surprises me by snuggling closer, rubbing her belly against the ninety-degree angle of my dick. All while looking me in the eye.