Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46202 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46202 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Closing my eyes, the kiss returns to me, his firm lips – their tempting roughness. The feeling of his hands on my hips, squeezing as though he never wanted to let go, as though he knew what we would make together.
A future, a family, a life.
My phone vibrates, causing my eyes to snap open.
You better say yes, or I’ll have to visit you later tonight and drag you back to my apartment.
My body gives a tantalizing shiver at that. It’s the idea of him choosing for me, removing the guilt that’s already hammering into me whenever I think about the kiss, the sneaking around, the wrongness of it.
But how can it be wrong? Seriously, how, when it feels like perfection?
I’m scared, Damien, I type. What if Dad finds out? What if he hates us?
The way this is going, he’s going to find out at some point anyway. He has to. We can’t sneak around forever.
I swallow, knowing he’s right but unable to agree, even if I should. He’s said similar things via text during this past week. I know it’s me, or at least mostly me, who’s holding back on the telling-Dad front.
Maybe this will be easier to talk about in person.
I sent the text, wondering if I just lied.
Nothing’s easier in person, not with Damien.
Not when I’m standing beneath his towering form, feeling his warm breath teasing over my cheeks as he leans in for a kiss…
Tomorrow, then. X
I nod, wincing as Dad laughs from downstairs.
Tomorrow X
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Damien
I lower the heat, allowing the sauce to simmer, and then check my phone again. It’s stupid since I checked it thirty seconds ago, but this day has got me on edge.
I spent the morning at the restaurant, recording a batch of thirty-second cooking tip videos for Danielle to upload to our social media.
I’m already thinking of the restaurant like that, as ours, though. Technically, she’s more like a freelance employee working through her company.
But none of that matters. Every time I think about it, it becomes we and ours.
It’s difficult not to think of my entire life like that, my apartments and my fortune, my heart and my love, even if I thought maybe I wasn’t capable of that anymore. I’ve never felt it.
But how else am I supposed to describe this feeling?
Calm down, I warn myself. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
But I’ve had over a week to diffuse this possessive hunger inside of me, for it to wilt away, and it hasn’t.
It won’t.
She means too much to me already.
The instrumental music I’m playing pauses as a text comes through, my phone vibrating from the kitchen island.
I grab it quickly, as I do when I get a text these days.
It almost makes me laugh to think about the days before Danielle, when I’d happily ignore my phone for hours or days, with no thought about who was texting me or why.
I’d focus on my work, nothing else, because no woman ever made me feel anything the way she does.
And now she’s all I can think about. Cooking this meal this evening has only been easy because I know it’s for Danielle.
I’m outside.
Coming now.
She was paranoid about walking up to my apartment building, so she arranged to wait across the street.
I’m supposed to walk into the lobby and grab my mail. Then wait down the hall for her to let her up the elevator.
It all makes me feel so dirty and deceitful, which is why I promised myself we have to tell Max soon.
I do as we discussed, collecting a few letters as I look out the floor-to-ceiling windows across the street.
A light rain is falling, the droplets sliding down the glass, distorting her image.
Even so, I have to resist the urge to sprint out there. Even in her raincoat with her hood pulled up, I can make out her shape, hips, and massage-me-now breasts.
I can’t see her face, but I know how her lips taste and feel as though they were shaped specifically for me.
Walking back down the hallway, I nod to the building’s security guard. I’ve told him a guest will be arriving, as well as her description, so he won’t challenge her in the lobby.
I’m sorry, Max, I think. I wish we could stop.
That’s a lie. I’ll never stop wanting her.
I wait at the end of the hallway, near the elevator.
Danielle walks down about half a minute later, pulling her hood off, revealing her damp wavy hair, and rain droplets on her cheeks.
Surging forward, I pull her into my arms. It’s like a reflex I can’t control, don’t want to control even if I was just thinking about how wrong this is all is.
She gasps in the sexiest way when I crush my lips against hers. Her hands claw onto my arms, her fingernails digging in like she’s teeming with the need to be together as I am.