Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 135536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Holy crap.
He was doing it.
Momma was right. Men are more basic than a little black dress.
I hurried to my room, slipping into a soft-pink lingerie nightgown with crisscross satin bows wrapped around my chest.
Thank you, Cara, for pimping my ride.
Romeo appeared a few minutes later, a whipped cream can in his hand. It was beyond comical to see the most stuck-up, serious man I’d ever come across holding something so…random.
His eyes raked down my body. “Cara bought you this?”
“Yes.” I forced out a smile. “Do you like it?”
“I’ll like it more when it’s in tatters on the floor.” He pushed the whipped cream into my hands. “On your knees. Now, Miss Townsend.”
“Can you…get undressed first?” I swallowed, feigning shyness. “I’ve never been completely naked in front of a man before.”
“Full nudity won’t be necessary for what I have in mind for you.”
A scream lodged in my throat.
Selfish bastard.
His ego needed its own zip code, a talk show, and a harem of agents.
“Just…just lie in my bed, all right?” I ground out.
“I’d rather do this standing up.”
“If you don’t indulge me at all, I’d rather not do it altogether,” I snapped. Then, to conceal my plan, I gentled my approach. “Everything we’ve done so far has been on your terms. This is important to me. I need to feel like I have a say, too.”
Romeo frowned, weighing my words, finally complying. “Take advantage of my goodwill, and I assure you—you’ll be reminded I lack it altogether.”
With wobbly knees, I waited until he flattened against my mattress before I mounted him, straddling his narrow waist.
He stared up at me, indifference making room for a glint of desire in his fog-colored eyes.
“It’s all so new and foreign to me.” I licked my lips, feeling myself blush, because this wasn’t actually a lie. I fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, undoing them with shaky fingers.
“I said I won’t undress.”
“I’ll get undressed, too. I promise.”
I got stuck on his custom RF cufflinks. He took over, removing them with an impatient snarl.
I hesitated. “I hope I won’t disappoint you.”
“While I’m not a fan of your personality, I’d pay good money to watch you sit and breathe,” he admitted, his voice roughening. “All you have to do is be alive for me to get a hard-on, so don’t worry your pretty head about underperforming.”
Sadly, that was the sweetest thing he’d ever said to me.
His shirt feathered to the floor, exposing his sculpted upper body. My fingertips tingled, begging to run over his work-of-art abs. All smooth tan skin, bulging six-pack, perfect pecs, and lean muscles.
The veins running down his biceps and forearms told the story of a man who kept himself in brilliant shape. I was also acutely aware of how easily he could crush me with his strength should he wish to.
I licked my lips, allowing my hands to roam his chest down to his belly button. “Lord,” I breathed out. “You’re beautiful.”
He caught my wrist between his fingers when my hand was halfway down the path to his pants.
His eyes bore into mine. “If you sit on my face and let me eat you out through your nightgown, I’ll buy you the Astor Opera House.”
The sentence didn’t fully register for the first fifteen seconds.
This didn’t sound like him at all. The possessive tone. The carnal urgency in his usually shark-dead eyes.
“Uh…what?”
“I’ll buy it for you.” He didn’t blink, my wrist still clasped in his hand. “You’ll be able to do as you please with it. Cancel the annual debutante ball. Burn it down to the ground. Flatten it and build a tacky strip mall instead as payback for the way Chapel Falls judged you the night of the ball. The entire town will know your husband bought you the place just because you fancied it.”
My eyes flared, heart wedged in my throat. The man was dead serious. He obviously wasn’t playing with a full deck, as Daddy said.
No point in reminding him he was the reason I was now a social pariah.
“The Astor Opera House isn’t for sale,” I said once I found my voice. “It belongs to my daddy’s friend, Paul Dunn—”
“Everything is for sale if you offer over value. Test the theory yourself. Sit on my face, Dallas, and I’ll give you anything you desire. I’ll buy you that Japanese cookie factory if you let me feast on your juices.”
I eyed him curiously, thrill coursing through my veins. My sexuality held potent power over him once he let his guard down. Which had only happened once so far.
“But you’d go back to your penthouse afterwards? After we…”
“Yes.” Remembering himself, he released my hand as if it were fire. “Don’t confuse lust with like. Lust is an urge. Like is a sentiment. I hold no sentiments toward you.”
I planted my hand over the hem of his pants. “Then I’d rather do things my way.”