Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
For several beats, Tyler just sits there with me naked and on top of him, unmoving. He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t kiss me. He just stares at me without seeing me or us. There’s a tic in his jaw, tension radiating off of him, and burrowing inside me. He’s out of his mind over his father, certain he will somehow reach up from his grave and kill me as he did Allison. I was certain I was inviting that wild, dark side of Tyler to fuck all his torment away, if only for tonight.
I ease back from where I lean into him. “Tyler?”
He doesn’t react, and suddenly, I know what is going on. Suddenly, I know he’s convinced himself he needs to create distance between us to protect me, and it pisses me off, but more so, it cuts me open. It hurts, really, really badly. I lean into him, my hands planted on his shoulders. “Stop what you’re doing right now. Just stop.”
“Bella—”
His tone, his guilty expression, says it all. I was right. “I can’t, Tyler,” I murmur with my heart in my throat. “I really can’t do this.” I try to climb off of him, but he holds onto me.
I shove against him. “Let me go, Tyler. That’s what you want anyway.”
His arms snake around my waist. My hands are forced back onto his shoulders, and while I try to shove his hard body away from mine, I fail. “Stop. Let me go.”
“You stop, Bella. Just stop.”
“Seriously, Tyler,” I can feel tears piercing my eyes, which only serves to anger me more. I don’t cry—it’s not what the daughter who lost a mother and fears for her NASCAR driver father does. People like me learn to be tough, learn how to block things out, but I swear this man has the power to make me cry rivers and bleed oceans. “I can’t do this. You never wanted a girlfriend, let alone a bride. Your father knew that. He won. I lost.”
“Bella, baby. That is not what is going on. I don’t want out.”
“Let me up, Tyler. How many times do I have to say it? Let. Me. Up.”
“Please don’t make me do that,” he says, and the “please” is what gets to me.
Tyler doesn’t say please. That word gives me pause, and I curl my fingers on his shoulders, but I’m not calm, not one little bit. “Please what, Tyler? Please can you get out of this? Please can you—”
His fingers curl on my neck, under my hair, and he pulls my mouth just above his. “Please listen to me,” he says, and his hand covers my breast, sending a spiral of sensations through my body.
“I can’t do that with your hand on my breast,” I whisper.
“Yes, you can because my hand on your gorgeous breast tells a story you need to hear. I want you. I need you. I love you like I didn’t know I could love, Bella. I’m trying to protect you.”
“Are you? Or are you—”
His fingers twine in my hair, an erotic tug to his grip that has me gasping with the bite it creates. “You know why it took me so long to touch you?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Because I knew I’d never stop.” He’s barely spoken the words before he’s pulled my mouth to his, and he’s kissing me with possessive demand. And I can taste that part of him I once thought I’d never know. The part of him that lies beneath the hard, dirty-talking, sexy leader of Hawk Legal. The part of him that is human and fallible but somehow perfect in every way. And beyond all logic, I forgive him for the wall he slammed between us, if only for a moment, thankfully it was more a flimsy veil than it was steel.
But what if it’s steel next time? On second thought, I need to know he has the room to think, and that he chooses what he wants, what he really wants, not what is forced upon him by a legal document. I need to know that’s us. I part our lips, tearing my mouth from his. “I should give you space to think.”
“Do you know what happens when you give a man like me space he doesn’t want? You end up against your office door with your leg over my shoulder and me on my knees. I’m not walking away from you, Bella. And I’m not letting you walk away, either.”
The fingers of my hand splay on his cheek where they have somehow landed, the heat in my belly sliding lower, but I still manage to push back. “You can stay on your knees and make me beg every day, but if I don’t think you really want to be with me, Tyler, I’ll walk away.”