Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
A wildfire raced across my flesh, and I couldn’t breathe by the time I’d made it through them. My stomach coiled with the exact kind of ache he was describing, my thighs tingling and my core throbbing.
I couldn’t formulate a response. Didn’t know how to answer when every single one of the thousand words that spun through my head conflicted.
God.
I couldn’t breathe.
Could barely even read when the next text came through.
CC
You want to see how bad I need you, too?
No.
I absolutely did not.
Me
Yes.
The response was out before I could stop myself.
A glutton on my knees.
I feasted on the picture that popped into the thread.
The image was shadowy. Grainy in the bare light that seeped in from the side. But it was bright enough that I could tell the man was laid out on a bed, wearing only a pair of tight black briefs.
Sculpted body and bulky, defined muscle.
Every inch of the man was chiseled and packed and rippling with the kind of strength that should be impossible. Ridges and caverns and grooves.
His flesh was littered in ink, though the designs were obscured in the duskiness, shrouded where he held the phone high.
But honestly, I couldn’t focus on anything else, anyway.
My mind had glazed over at the sight of his cock pressed against the thin fabric of his underwear. The outline was perfectly defined and angled off to the side, his massive length stone, the bulging head barely contained by the waistband.
One second later, words followed it.
CC
That’s how damned hard I am for you. What is it about you, Shortcake? What is it that’s sitting in my memory like a shadow? Something haunting me?
It was Brooke.
It was Brooke.
The thought of her sent reality crashing back into the forefront.
This was wrong.
So wrong.
Frantically, I pounded at my phone to get out of the text app, hands shaking out of control, then I took it a step farther and held the button down to fully shut down my phone.
I couldn’t be trusted with it.
Couldn’t be trusted with whatever this was.
Because this?
It was dangerous.
Dangerous to my resolve.
Dangerous to my purpose.
Dangerous to who I was and who I wanted to be.
Dangerous to her memory.
And disregarding that memory?
It would destroy me.
And that meant I needed to stay as far away from Cody Cooper as possible.
ELEVEN
CODY
Mack’s was packed like it always was on a Saturday night. The bar swollen to the gills.
The upbeat country band playing on the elevated stage at the very back of the cavernous building drew a slew to the dance floor that sat smack in the middle of the huge space.
Those who weren’t shaking their thing were crowded around the high-top tables that surrounded the dance floor on three sides or were tucked into the secluded tables and low chairs that lined the walls. Others gathered in a horde around the two bars where the bartenders fought to keep up with the demand.
I shouldered my way through the crush of people who were making the best of their Saturday night, laughter and voices elevated, the vibe one of carelessness and letting go. One of chasing down a bit of pleasure.
Smokey vapor caught in the strobes of light that flashed from over the stage, twining and twisting as it climbed toward the soaring, arched ceiling before it disappeared.
I could almost taste the lust as I wound through that haze. Could scent it in the darkened atmosphere.
Any time I was here, which was pretty damned often if I was being honest, my pulse always beat a little faster. Body prepping for what the night might bring.
The thrill of the hunt.
Wondering who I’d end up going home with once last call was made and I stumbled out these doors to give myself over to the craving that never seemed to abate.
I always found a willing partner. A hot body who hungered for the same thing I did.
It was my release.
My gratification.
My living free and to the fullest.
The last couple weeks that feeling had been all off, though. The anticipation scraping with something I couldn’t quite pinpoint.
An edge that blurred into confusion.
What bullshit.
I knew exactly what it was.
It was all about the woman who was close to driving me insane. Right out of my godforsaken mind. This heedlessness that I couldn’t tame getting loose of its chains.
Wanted to kick myself in the damn head for sending that picture last night.
I’d fucking tried to keep it friendly.
The scrape with her father had reminded me why I had to.
But seeing her through the week had whittled that conviction down to shit.
And there I’d gone, pushing her in the direction that she kept saying that she didn’t want to go.
Problem was, the way she looked at me told an entirely different story.
I’d nearly lost it when she’d gotten back from work yesterday evening. A crack running right down my middle when I’d seen the way she’d sat in the cab of her SUV staring out the windshield at the house as if she were coming home for the first time.