Total pages in book: 224
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
He laughs, and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him laugh, not like this, not natural and at ease. “Yes. I’ll feed you. I’m starving for food and you. There’s a sandwich place I love around the corner. They deliver.”
“Jersey’s?” I ask.
“Yes. Jersey’s. I can’t believe you knew that.”
“I love it, too.”
“Well then. You go to the bathroom. It’s to the left by the stairs. I’ll order.”
“Great. Thank you.” I stand up, holding his giant shirt closed around me and I start walking, only now aware of the long, rectangular-shaped room with windows that literally climb the room to the second floor.
“What do you want?” he calls after me.
“Tell them to make Carrie’s usual,” I say over my shoulder without turning or looking out the window. I just want a bathroom and a few minutes to myself.
I reach the door, enter, and shut myself inside. I lean on the door, taking in the long mahogany cabinet beneath a shiny white countertop with a mirror above it. I look down at myself in Reid’s shirt and I have a come-to-Jesus moment. I like being in his shirt way too much. I like being here with him way too much, but I’m not a relationship person and neither is he. Reid and I connect professionally and sexually. There is no reason I can’t just enjoy this ride. That’s how you enjoy a man like Reid, as an adrenaline ride that can be sustained. I’m not falling for him. I’m living the high of the ride. The end. I will not go anyplace else with this.
I drop the shirt, pee, wash up, run my fingers through the wild mess that is my hair, and that’s it. I’m not going to give myself a chance to think beyond the logic I’ve established. I’m going to enjoy Reid. I want to know Reid. I can learn from this man. I have never been with a man who I admired and wanted, to learn from. It’s sexy. It’s part of his allure. I pull his shirt back into place the best I can and when I open the door Reid is standing there, wearing nothing but his unzipped pants, beautifully naked from the waist up. He lifts a T-shirt in his hand to show it to me. “This won’t be so big on you and you can actually use your hands to eat.”
He brought me a T-shirt? “Thank you,” I say.
“Drop the shirt you’re wearing.”
“Just like that? Drop the shirt?”
His eyes burn hot with challenge. “Just like that.”
“Fine. Just like that.” I let it fall from my shoulders and pool on the floor behind me. I am now naked but for my thigh highs, and Reid sweeps my body, his gaze hot and heavy, my nipples puckering beneath the inspection. He groans low in his throat and drags me to him. “You’re beautiful. Really fucking beautiful.”
I can’t breathe with the intensity in his voice that is almost anger. Like he doesn’t want to feel whatever he feels, and I wonder if we’re headed toward him suddenly wanting me to leave, but then he’s kissing me, a sultry stroke of tongue before he says, “I’m not even close to done with you, woman.”
“And if I’m done with you?”
“I’ll lick you until you aren’t.”
Heat rushes to my cheeks. “You say—”
“The truth. I told the truth. That’s what I’ll do. And if we don’t get you dressed, I’ll be fucking you when the food gets here.” He kisses me again and pulls the shirt over my head. I shove my arms inside right about the time his phone rings from the living room.
He grimaces and runs his fingers through his hair, leaving it in a spiky sexy mess. “For once I’d like to ignore that damn thing,” he says. “But I have to get it.”
“Of course you have to get it.”
“And you understand that,” he says, and this must please him because his hands come down on my waist and he pulls me to him, kissing me hard and fast before releasing me to chase down his phone somewhere near the couch.
For just a moment, I scan the room I’ve barely noticed because of the man that consumes it and me. The large gray cloth couch a shade darker than the floor, the one where I just had an orgasm, is the entry of the room, framed by cream-colored chairs that are leather to contrast the gray. There’s a gray rug under the couch. The coffee and end tables match the chairs. Cluster lighting dangles just above the seating area, resembling diamond raindrops in the sky. It’s appropriately Reid in its simple masculinity while I don’t believe there is anything simple about this man beyond this room.
I move forward, intending to join Reid where he’s now standing by the couch on the phone. Instead, I find myself stepping to the window just in front of the living area, staring at the Statue of Liberty alight in the center of a now black sea. My stomach knots with about ten emotions, all personal, all about where I am in life right now at this moment.