Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 32879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 132(@250wpm)___ 110(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 132(@250wpm)___ 110(@300wpm)
Enzo watched her lips press together, and she was clearly fighting with asking him that question. He waited. Patience wasn’t his forté, but when it came to Adele, he seemed to have some.
“And what is it this place has that the others don’t, besides the cheap scotch?”
Enzo stood and pressed his face close to hers. He felt the fan of her breath.
“Simple, this bar has my future wife.”
With her face so close and feeling her breath, he couldn’t resist slamming his lips down on hers and taking the kiss he wanted.
Chapter Three
Adele had never slapped a man before. She certainly had never slapped a customer. And she’d never been kissed by a man, or by a customer. It was totally lame that at the age of twenty-three, she hadn’t been kissed.
Why did Enzo have to be her first kiss?
Her lips still felt a little swollen. After he’d kissed her, she’d pulled away, drew her hand back, and slapped him right across the face. The moment she did it, she’d been in a state of shock. Bishop wasn’t around, but Arnold had stepped forward.
“He’s a paying customer.”
Her heart had raced and she quickly apologized, even though it was the last thing she wanted to do. Only, Bishop had been around, and he’d called her over to him. He told her to leave for the night, and he clearly looked pissed.
Great. Now, Enzo might have cost her a job. It wasn’t the best job in the world, but it paid the bills and left a little aside for her to enjoy her hobby, which is what she wanted right now.
Without another look at Enzo, she had left the bar after grabbing her bag, and stepped out into the warm night. She should have known he’d follow her. That was all Enzo did.
“That wasn’t quite the reaction I was expecting,” he said.
Adele whirled around and glared at him. “I’m sorry if I didn’t quite meet your expectations.” She was shaking.
That kiss shouldn’t mean anything. It wasn’t like she’d been imagining what it would be like to kiss a man. Not recently, anyway. Yes, when she hit puberty and started to notice real hot, sexy actors, she’d been curious, but that had faded after her mother’s cancer diagnosis. A lot of stuff had faded and stopped being important to her.
“Adele, what is bothering you?”
“I’m living my life, Enzo. It’s been two years since my mom passed away.” She had to stop as she felt a tightening in her chest from the pain. She wasn’t going to back down, though. “Why now? I don’t need you, and I certainly don’t need my father. I don’t want him anywhere near me. I don’t want to be part of your world. I’ve got a nice life here. Don’t you see that? Before you cost me anything else, could you please leave!”
She was growing tired of all the bullshit. The last thing she wanted to do was rely on her father. She had no idea if Enzo was a good man or simply playing a part. Either way, she felt like a pawn, and she didn’t want to be played or moved.
Two years, she’d been alone. Two years, she’d been coping. She finally had a routine, one that she took day by day to get through, and they were ruining it for her.
Adele had hated her father many years ago as a kid, but that hatred had faded, and she accepted who he was, and what he wasn’t, to her. Now, he came wandering into her life as if he was going to help her, and she couldn’t and didn’t want to stand for that.
“I can’t be the first guy to take you by surprise with a kiss,” Enzo said, laughing.
Rather than continue the conversation with him, she turned on her heel and began to walk away.
He moved with speed until he was standing in front of her. She tried to move left, then right, and had no choice but to stand her ground as she glared at him.
“Move.”
“Say please.”
“Please, move, please,” she said.
Enzo smiled. “There’s always a price.”
Adele looked at him and she took a deep breath, then opened her mouth and screamed. She made sure she did it at the top of her lungs.
The shock on his face nearly made her stop and start laughing, but this was long past being pissed off. She wanted her space.
Today had been hard. Between Enzo’s visit in the morning, then the time in her sewing room before going to visit her mother’s grave—it had been a long day. She knew it would be.
“You want to play dirty,” he said. “We can play dirty.”
Before she had any idea what he was doing, he thrust his shoulder into her stomach, and lifted her up and over it. The scream faltered. She tried to reach out to grab something. The only thing available was his ass, and there was no way she was grabbing that.