Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“Riley.”
The room hazed into nothingness then came back again.
Shit. This was insane. I’d never moaned a woman’s name before. And I’d just come on my desk.
I hurried to my en suite bathroom, wet the end of a towel, then brought it back and cleaned up, shaking my head. I didn’t jack off, I fucked. I didn’t moan the name of a woman, I focused on my own pleasure.
This was different.
It left me with one conclusion.
Riley would be mine. I had to have her. Had to dominate her, like I did everything else.
And with her living next door, it would be that much easier. And that much more difficult.
Chapter 4
Riley
“What?!” Veronica’s voice shrieked over the thump of the beat from the stereo. “You went home with who? Who is he?”
Her azure eyes were so wide they were on the verge of morphing into donuts or side plates. She shook her long, blonde hair back, pursed her lips tight—she’d chosen purple lipstick today. Now, there was a color I couldn’t pull off.
“His name is Jax,” I said.
“Riley! Are you insane? Are you actually out of your mind?” she continued.
I slipped down the pole and landed easily, then sighed and walked over to the stereo in the corner, clicked it off. Classes hadn’t started yet—this was our morning warm up together, and I was the idiot who’d told her all about the man who’d saved me, who’d driven me to the brink of madness last night.
“Ronny,” I said in the silence, and turned back to her.
“No, no, no, don’t you Ronny me.” She waggled her finger at me. “Don’t you dare. This is totally out of character for you. I mean, every woman has needs, but to go home with some douche who wants to buy—”
“I know,” I said and raised a palm. “I know, OK? It wasn’t my finest moment, judgment-wise, but it was…” How could I accurately describe the dreamy quality to last night? It’d been surreal. Every moment near Jax had been a fantasy.
Our lives were so far apart. He was the billionaire investor, and I was the woman who slept in her studio because she had nowhere else to go. And no, Veronica’s place wasn’t an option. She had a six-year-old daughter, and their little family didn’t need the upheaval of another mouth to feed, another person using up the water.
“It was what?” Veronica asked, and her tone had softened a little—always a good sign.
My bestie was protective at the best of times. She was five years younger than me, at twenty-five, but she was wise beyond her years. Probably had something to do with the single-mother thing.
If I envied anyone in the world, it was her.
She didn’t have a partner, but she had all the love a woman could need. The only type of love that was real. She had her little girl, Nessy, and that was all that mattered to her.
“Veronica, it was unbelievable. Indescribable.”
“Try describing it,” she said, “because I’m struggling to come to terms with how you wound up spending the night in some billionaire dude’s guest room. This is like Pretty Woman without the hooker subplot. Unless, is he…asking you for anything else?”
I rolled my eyes at her.
“I’m worried about you,” she said and strode barefoot across the boards. She halted beside me and dragged me into a hug. “I know you’ve been stressed about everything that’s going on here, but I just don’t understand why you’d go home with some strange dude. I’m not judging, everybody likes a little strange, but why not just go back to your apartment, I mean—” Ronny cut off and glared at me, raised one eyebrow. “Riley? What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing,” I said and slipped out of her embrace. “Nothing you need to worry about.” I walked over to the corner where I’d placed my handbag and rifled through it, brought out my cell phone.
“Riley Robinson, you turn around this second and tell me what’s going on,” Veronica said, in the mom voice she used on Nessy. “Not once in the history of our entire friendship have you ever lied to me, and you’d better not start now.”
“I don’t want to burden you with my issues, Ron,” I said. “You’ve got your own drama to deal with.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” she commented, but she padded up to me again, grabbed me by the shoulders, and spun me around on the spot. “You know you could never be a burden to me. You were there for me during my darkest times, girl. You were my support. When Nessy’s father abandoned us, you –” She cut off and shook her blonde locks – the pain was still fresh for her. “Let me do the same thing for you. It’s only fair.”
“It’s not fair on you,” I said, but she blinked those big blue eyes at me, and I sighed.