Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 35875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 179(@200wpm)___ 144(@250wpm)___ 120(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 179(@200wpm)___ 144(@250wpm)___ 120(@300wpm)
I sob again when I feel his erection against my sex.
"You're sleeping in this bed," he growls against my skin, bucking against me like he's fucking me. At this point, he might as well be. His erection keeps hitting the exact right spot, and with every pass, I want him more and more.
"You don't know me!"
"So tell me what I don't know."
"I…I…" He makes it sound so easy. But my life hasn't been all rainbows and kittens since I left. It's been the exact opposite of that. And maybe he wants me in his bed right now. But he still thinks I'm the pretty little angel he met seven years ago. I haven't been her in seven years, though. I couldn't be her and survive out there.
"Tell me, baby. Who are you? What are you so afraid I won't like?"
"I lived in my car in Los Angeles," I whisper.
He stills on top of me.
"F-for a while."
"How long?"
"Almost a year before I was able to move into a shelter."
"Jesus," he mutters, his lips still against my skin. "How did you survive, baby?"
I squeeze my eyes closed. "I had a fake ID so I w-worked in a bar." Humiliation climbs up my throat. "But I stole things, too. I l-lied to everyone."
Eventually, I managed to get a little apartment with another girl from the shelter. It wasn't much. Actually, it was awful. Nothing worked right. Everything was old and rusted. But it was shelter. I found a better job. I found a better place. They paid for me to take classes.
It was a long, slow climb out of a dark, dank hole.
He growls softly, pulling back slightly. I feel his eyes on me, his gaze heavy. "And you think that makes you less worthy?"
"I don't know," I whisper, refusing to open my eyes to look at him. "You offered to marry me. But you're a billionaire with all your companies. Maybe you shouldn't be tied to someone who committed a bunch of crimes."
"Look at me, Madison." His hand curves around my jaw, forcing my head up. "Look at me."
I reluctantly open my eyes to see him staring at me with this look that's… God, it's everything. It's so damn fierce and possessive, so raw and proud.
"You survived," he says, his voice a dark rasp as he dips his head. He wrecks me with his lips and words, dragging them down the side of my throat as he whispers his perspective to me. "When you had nowhere to go and no one to turn to, you survived. You took care of yourself. You kept yourself safe. You fed yourself. You protected yourself. And you did it in a world that isn't kind, especially to women out there on their own."
"Jack."
"You're a warrior, baby." He nips my shoulder before lifting his lips to my ear. "I'm proud of you."
I whimper wordlessly, my heart in a vise. He's trying to snatch it out of my chest and claim it as his. I freaking know he is. And I'm not doing anything to stop him.
"Knowing how you survived out there on your own doesn't make me want you any less. If anything, it makes me want you in this bed even more," he growls, his fingertips digging into my hips as his teeth scrape down the tendon in the side of my neck. "I want you right here where I can pamper and spoil you. That's what you deserve. It's what you always deserved."
"You aren't playing fair," I whisper, my voice shaking.
"Yeah? Why is that?"
"You're supposed to be horrified."
"Oh, I am," he grunts. "I'm fucking horrified that you were forced to live that way. I'm horrified that you think I could ever think less of you for it. And I'm horrified that your bastard of a father is still breathing right now. But horrified by you?" His gorgeous blue eyes lock with mine, the truth reflecting like stars. "Never."
"I'm not supposed to fall in love with you."
"Yeah?" He grins like I just told him the best thing he's ever heard. "What if I tell you that it's not falling? It's accepting the inevitable."
I stare at him with wide eyes, my heart pounding like an out-of-control metronome. Mostly because I think he's probably right. Whatever this is between us does feel inevitable. He feels inevitable. He always has. And that's…terrifying.
My father stripped everything away from me when I was cowering in that closet, listening to him plan how to kill me. But Jack? Jack is something he wasn't ever able to take. He was the one piece of my past I still had, the one part I clung to with both hands. Even though he was never really mine, he always felt like he belonged to me.
What happens if I lose it? Lose him?
"I looked for you," he says softly, nuzzling his face against my throat.