Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 26148 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 131(@200wpm)___ 105(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26148 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 131(@200wpm)___ 105(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
“How…” I whisper, winded by his statement. “How dare you talk to me like that.”
That’s what I say out loud. Even though I’m covered in goosebumps. Even though the idea of this man in his white coat, with his highly skilled hands, ordering me to take off my panties makes me terribly wet. My tummy is flipping and squeezing in the most disconcerting way and this man. This man is the only one who has ever aroused me. That’s one of the reasons why I try so hard to avoid him. The power he has over my body is scary. A couple of harshly delivered lines and I want to get on my knees, beg to be ordered around.
Beg for things I don’t understand.
“You’re right.” We stop in the middle of the living room. I’m still being held in his arms, my feet inches from the royal blue Aubusson rug, the fire warming the fronts of my shins. Slowly, he lets me slip down the front of his body. And when my bottom drags over the huge bulge in his pants, I gasp, my knees turning to jelly when I try to stand. Doctor Fletcher catches me, though. Takes the cleaning supplies out of my hands and sets them on a nearby table. Then he pulls me into his arms and turns me around, so that I’m looking up into his sternly handsome face, those brown eyes studying my features with rapt intensity. “You make it difficult to be civilized, Charlotte.”
“How?” I breathe, unwisely allowing him to slide a big hand down my spine, stopping right before the curve of my backside, his fingertips tucking ever so slightly into the waistband of my skirt. “How do I make it difficult?”
“By existing,” he rasps, a line appears between his brows. “You’re an anomaly to me. I can’t figure you out. I offer to pay for medical school and you turn down the money, in favor of cleaning houses? Your actions make little sense to me. And you refuse to meet with me long enough to understand why. Why would you resist your calling when I’d make it so easy to pursue it?” I’m finding it impossible to answer his questions because those fingertips are sinking further and further below the waistband of my skirt, his mouth coming dangerously close to mine, his proximity holding me in thrall. As if he’s injected me with anesthesia to weaken my resistance. “You send me a brief email to decline my offer and that’s it. You cut me off. You refuse the gifts I send. You ignore my calls. And yet…” That hand continues its journey into my skirt, clutching my right cheek, pulling me roughly up against him, so I can feel his erection against my belly. And I moan. My head falls back and I let out the neediest sound ever uttered in history. “And yet, you want to be fucked as badly as I want to fuck you, don’t you, Charlotte?” His quick breaths bathe my face. “I’m not imagining it.”
Do not answer that.
As a card-carrying virgin, I don’t even know how to have sex. Or if I’d even like it. Just another reason this attraction to Doctor Fletcher is so confusing. It’s as though my body knows something that my brain hasn’t been privy to yet.
“How much…” I stop to wet my suddenly dry lips. “How much money can you possibly have? Do you just drop nearly three hundred grand on every woman you want to sleep with?” I shake my head. “That’s insane.”
“No,” he pushes through his teeth, dragging his forehead side to side on mine. “I don’t. Only you, Charlotte.”
Breathless, I whisper, “Oh.”
Look. I’ve never claimed to be gifted with eloquence.
“I offered to pay for medical school because you’re clearly remarkable. I’ve read several of your journal submissions, going back to when you were only sixteen. Spoken with your professors. You love medicine. And I want people like you in my field.” Inside my skirt, his fingers trail up and down the strip of my thong where it’s positioned in the valley of my bottom. “The fact that I want to rail you like a dog is an entirely separate issue.”
My brain blinks.
Shakes its head.
“Aha!” I manage, unevenly, somehow managing to extricate myself from his embrace and step back, warding off his big body with a shaky hand. “You see, that is impossible. To keep those two things separate. Sex and financial obligations. I’m not a fool.”
“I’m well aware.”
“Then don’t expect me to believe you would offer me full tuition if you didn’t also want to sleep with me.”
“You believe my offer was a bribe. So you would go to bed with me.” A muscle pops in his cheek. “Quite simply, that is utter bullshit, Charlotte. I met this beautiful, gifted girl by chance and…” He rakes a hand through his hair. “Jesus, she fucking bewitched me. That’s the truth. And I can’t help it—I want to take care of her in all ways. In bed and out. I never intended it to be coercion.”