Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 146417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Somehow hearing he hadn’t gone to bed with the gorgeous, do-gooder reporter made her feel a bit better. “One of the things I liked about Bliss was that I didn’t get hit on very often. Most of the men around town are married, and the others are super respectful. Being there, it was the most free I’d felt in forever.”
He shook his head. “I would never have said you would be happy in a small town. You like the city too much.”
“I probably wouldn’t have dreamed it either. Then I found one I liked. That’s the funny thing about change. It doesn’t happen until we let it. I took that job because I was worried about you, and I ended up loving the people there. Of course, now they all hate me. That’s the story of my life.” Once they’d figured out she’d lied to them for months, that she’d been watching one of their own, they hadn’t been so welcoming.
“It’s the nature of the job. I had the same problems at first. No one at McKay-Taggart and Knight trusted me with anything until I sacrificed for them. For a long time I was the Agency dude they hated the least.” He sighed and seemed to relax a bit. “They didn’t really trust me until they realized I wasn’t ever going back to the Agency.”
“I don’t know. I think it’s more than that. I’ve felt it all my life—that distance from other people. When your parents are the not-so-kind overlords of all they survey it’s hard.” From an early age she’d realized her playmates were carefully cultivated. It hadn’t been until she’d entered the ultra-exclusive boarding school her parents selected for high school that she realized almost everyone she knew was afraid of her because all it would take was a whisper from her mother to ruin their family in their society.
“Well, that’s how he got to you,” Beck pointed out. “Levi, that is. I’ve been thinking about it all night. You were lonely and he was willing to be your friend. He should have been upfront with you. He should have told you what he wanted and let you make the decision.”
Some memories were sweeter than others. Some pushed out the darkness. A vision of Beck sitting on a barstool beside her, telling her exactly what he wanted, haunted her in the best way possible. “Like you did?”
His smile deepened, finally revealing the dimples that only showed up when he was genuinely amused. “Hey, I was very open and honest that I was trying to get into your pretty panties.”
Their attraction had been out of control. He hadn’t approached her until he was no longer teaching her class, but she’d had some ridiculously over-the-top fantasies about the man. “Yeah, well, I didn’t make you wait long. If I remember correctly we were going at it in a motel because neither of us wanted to wait to get back across town.”
“The Kingsman. I remember that motel fondly.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It was not nice in the cold light of day. There was a definite layer of grime in that bathroom.”
His expression went serious. “There was nothing cold about that day.”
No. It had been a sunny, gorgeous summer day, and they’d laughed as they decided to not use that shower. They’d held hands on the metro and bought bagels and gone back to her place where they’d spent all Saturday in bed. She’d known she was madly in love with him that day.
That day seemed so far away now.
“Are you all right?” Beck asked.
She wanted to break the intimacy between them. The moment felt too warm. It was a falsehood, and she would end up hurting again. “Yeah, you got the exact pressure point. I’ll be fine as long as I move.”
“I wasn’t talking about that. That call from Levi… He’s stalking you.”
He’d been stalking her for years, but no one called it that when the man stalking her used to be a friend, still pretended to be one. She was the bitch who couldn’t see how much he cared about her. “He is.”
“Tell me what he did. Not that sanitized report. I want to know how he made you feel.”
“If I do that, you’ll get angry again.”
He shook his head. “No. I promise I won’t make this about me. I heard you. I’ve let those words sit with me, and I realized I was doing exactly what you said I was. I’m marginalizing what happened because I can’t stand the thought that this wasn’t about me, that I was incidental in this story. It’s hard to think that all this pain I’ve felt didn’t have any real meaning.”
“That’s not what I said. Of course it has meaning.”
He shrugged. “But oddly it feels worse that the pain wasn’t intentional.”
He had some toxic masculinity to work through, but then she’d always known it. He had anger issues that he’d never turned her way before the incident with his brother. What did she owe him? In her rational moments she knew she owed him nothing. But her stupid heart kept wanting more. “He told me he was going to use the drug on me. He told me he’s got a dose with my name on it.”