Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 138522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
“Wait. Jean Claude is dangerous. My ex told me before I was even in a war with Jean Claude that he believed he’d killed someone who got in his way. I’m in his sights. I’m dangerous. Maybe we shouldn’t—”
He pulls my hand from his mouth. “Talking about another man when I’m about to give you an orgasm is not good manners.” He lifts me and sets me on the barstool, and then he’s on his knee in front of me, sliding my skirt up my legs and pressing my knees apart. “I’ll make you forget Jean Claude. That’s a promise.” He slides his hands up my thighs and when his thumbs stroke the lace of my thigh highs, sending darts of pleasure through my body, I decide he’s right. I’m going to forget everything but this man, and right now, I can’t seem to remember why that might be a problem for him or me.
Chapter six
Gabe
Two years since she’s been fucked and I’d be willing to bet a whole lot longer since she’s been properly fucked. Her dry spell ends tonight.
I’m still on my knee in front of her, with her on the barstool, her knees wide at my urging. “Gabe,” she whispers, and I like that she’s present enough to use my name. To know who is giving her pleasure. What I don’t like is the damn cage that is my jacket. I shrug out of it and reach for my tie. She tries to shut her legs, but I’m not allowing that to happen. I change my mind when I see how awkward and vulnerable she looks. That’s not what I want for her right now. Not ever.
I kiss her knee and then stand and lift her from the barstool, setting her on the ground and molding her close. “Better?” I ask softly, stroking her wild red curls from her face.
“I’m pretty obviously nervous, aren’t I?”
“Yes.” I reach for her glass and hand it to her. “Finish this.”
“I may need you to carry me to the car when I go home if I drink that.”
I’m not letting her go home. I knew that the minute I decided to bring her here, but I don’t say that. Not yet. Not now. “I’ll take good care of you,” I say instead. “Drink.” I offer her the glass again and she downs the whiskey.
I set the glass on the bar and grab my phone from my pocket, turning on one of my music playlists, and a Kane Brown song starts to play. “How do you feel?” I ask, setting it on the counter.
She yanks my tie the rest of the way off my collar and tosses it. “Like I want to forget, and I hate that I’m acting like a nervous school girl.”
I don’t ask what she wants to forget. She has an ex that knows Jean Claude and Jean Claude is targeting her. Those two things are not coincidences but she’s smart, really damn smart to find someone like Reid, who worked for Jean Claude while training under our father. “Do you know what I think about your nerves?”
“That you don’t know how a damn grown woman who was married could be this nervous?”
“That it’s charming and sexy.” I stroke her cheek and kiss her. “And you weren’t nervous when you kissed me in the bar.”
“That was different. I didn’t know you. I didn’t know who you are. I didn’t—”
“Knowing who I am is good. It means you chose to come here with me, not a stranger.”
“We are strangers.”
My lips curve. “I told you. I know more about you than you think.”
“What else can you know about me?” she asks, giving me a curious look.
I could fuck her right now and show her the many ways I understand needing an escape and I will, just not yet. For reasons I can’t explain, I want to savor this woman.
I catch her hand with mine, lacing our fingers together as I walk her backward, and decide to slow things down, guiding her to the floor-to-ceiling window. Both of us grab the wooden railing that runs along the center of the glass. “It’s an amazing view,” she says, as we stare out at the Statue of Liberty lit up and seeming to float in an ocean of darkness. “Why this view instead of the park or the cityscape?”
I turn to her and lean a shoulder on the glass. “Because when I’m home, I want to escape the city and the demands it represents.” She turns to face me and I pull her to me and she doesn’t resist. She melts into me, her fingers curling on my chest and even without a skin to skin connection, just feeling her close has me burning alive. I want her naked. I want inside her. I want her present, and out of her own head.