Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
My laugh is hoarse, my expression condescending. “I owe you no such courtesy, Gracen. You’re a roommate. You live in my house. It’s none of your busi—”
“It is absolutely my business,” she growls at me with her fists curled tight. “When Lilly asks me at night where her daddy is and when he’ll be home and I can’t provide her an answer, well…it’s my fucking business.”
Guilt presses down on me. Awful, burning shame that Lilly asked for me and I wasn’t here.
I’m on the verge of vomiting out some type of apology when Gracen adds, “You’re a dad now. Start acting like it.”
Every bit of disgust in myself turns right back around on Gracen. I’m a fucking basket case the way my emotions have been reeling back and forth. One minute I’m angry. The next I’m smitten with tenderness for Lilly. The next I’m feeling guilty. The next I want to scream and yell at Gracen for her injustices. The next I want to kiss her.
Except right now I’m pissed, and I choose to focus on that. I stomp up to her, get right in her face, and snarl my fury at her. “I would know better how to be a dad if I’d had the same three and a half years you did to perfect this parenting shit, now wouldn’t I?”
To my astonishment, Gracen rolls her eyes at me. She isn’t cowed as usual, but instead goes to her toes to get right in my face. “Enough already. I am so sick of you throwing that at me. I’ve apologized for it.”
“Not enough, you haven’t,” I say in a harsh whisper, slightly impressed that both of us are still cognizant of a sleeping toddler upstairs.
“Oh get over yourself, Marek,” Gracen drawls with another eye roll. “I’m done apologizing to you.”
That eye roll.
The way she’s dismissing my feelings.
The sheer temerity she has in refusing to shoulder more responsibility when I’m clearly not done with making her feel like shit.
The way she’s fighting back at me. Eyes all passionately glazed with indignation, those fantastic tits heaving under her T-shirt.
I want to throttle her, but more than anything, I want to kiss her.
So I do.
Chapter 10
Gracen
Heat.
Flooding through my entire body as Marek’s mouth slams down on mine.
This man I’ve kissed a thousand times…you’d think it would feel like a homecoming of sorts.
But this is different. Nothing like I’ve ever felt from Marek before.
Lust and desire pour through me, mixed with a river of fear because I can still feel the fury rolling off of Marek in waves as he kisses me.
Hate may be too strong a word for the way he feels, but there is no tenderness or fond memories driving this brutal kiss.
No, he’s bruising my lips because he’s so fucking angry at me.
I know this man well, and I know he’s angry at himself too. For doing this. For giving in to the same desire I’m feeling as well. No way to separate the bad feelings from the good, so they mix together, and I accept them.
My hands go tentatively to his shoulders and I tilt my head ever so slightly so he can deepen the kiss. He groans in response, accepting my capitulation. It’s an animal sound of domination, and he punctuates it by gripping my hips possessively and walking me backward until my back comes up against the wall of the living room.
I don’t think for one minute of stopping this. Marek may be kissing me as a way to release his anger, but I’m not kissing him for the same reasons.
I kiss him back because I never stopped loving him. Even when he broke my heart and left me in ruins, so utterly alone and abandoned, I never once turned my heart away from what we had. There was no way I could, especially after Lilly was born and I realized everything that was good and beautiful about her was half of Marek’s doing. Despite Marek choosing another life over me, I never let my heart harden, because other than his wretchedly selfish choice, he’s been the best thing to ever happen to me. He’s been the love I knew I’d get a chance at only once in this lifetime.
Sure, I’d come to accept that the love was fleeting and perhaps only meant to be so I could have Lilly. But it was real, and so purely mine that I couldn’t give it up, even as I watched him walk away from me.
“Christ, this is insane,” Marek manages to curse against my mouth, but then his tongue is pushing back up against mine. He presses his hips into me and I feel the hard length of him against my belly.
An ache forms low, slides between my legs, and my hands slap his ass to try to press him closer to me. He approves by bending his knees slightly, then grinding his cock right against my mound.