Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86706 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86706 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
I lay down on the bed. “It’s not that I want someone to be an asshole. But when he comes across as near-perfect, it sort of lacks excitement, yeah. This is proof that I’m too young and immature to be in a relationship with someone who’s worth it.”
“I’m thirty-eight, and I still haven’t stopped picking the wrong men. So trust me, it’s not an age thing.”
“I don’t think I should be dating right now. And Kieran doesn’t seem like the type of guy you string along. He deserves a nice girl. I don’t ever want to break someone’s heart again.”
“Again?” She tilted her head. “Sounds like there’s a story there. Are you a little heartbreaker, Miss Emily?”
A wave of sadness hit me. “Yeah. There is a story there. One I don’t want to get into right now. But let’s just say, I live with a lot of guilt over the way things ended with my first love.”
“I’m sorry.” She frowned. “That sucks. But at least you’re learning from it, using it as a reason to be cautious with other guys.”
“I guess,” I murmured.
Just then my phone vibrated with a text from Stephen, the tour manager. It said Tristan was badly in need of allergy medication and asked me to go to the store to get some. I was off the clock starting at eight on nights we didn’t have a show, but it was understood that if someone needed something in an emergency, I would deliver.
I looked up from my phone and hopped off the bed. “Tristan needs allergy medication,” I told her. “I’m gonna run to the pharmacy.”
“What a pain in the ass,” she muttered.
I shrugged, putting on my shoes and grabbing my coat.
After I left the hotel, I searched for the nearest pharmacy on my phone as I walked through the parking lot to the rental car.
When I returned, I took the elevator all the way up to Tristan’s penthouse suite. Unlike the other rooms in this hotel, this one didn’t use a key. To enter, you had to have a passcode. Stephen had sent it to me in his text. As the elevator rose, my heart beat faster at the prospect of seeing Tristan.
The elevator opened to a spacious living area with a killer view of downtown Chicago. Tristan, though, was nowhere to be found. Or it seemed that way at first. The bedroom door was halfway open, so I walked toward it.
Before I could call his name, I froze. Tristan was in the room—but he wasn’t alone. He was lying on the bed, and there was a woman with him—a woman straddling him. What the fuck? He was shirtless, but otherwise they were both clothed. Still, she was basically giving him a lap dance.
I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I couldn’t move. Instead of running away, my eyes were glued to the situation. The room was silent, aside from her breaths. I couldn’t look away—the way his head bent back, the way he bit his lip, the way she moved over him. She wasn’t naked, but she might as well have been with the way she was grinding over him.
My eyes fell to his big, veiny hands holding her hips. What would they feel like gripping my body? Despite what he’d said before about groupies not doing it for him, he sure seemed turned on right now. My stomach twisted. More troublesome than the jealousy, though? I felt turned on, too.
Yet instead of leaving, I continued to stand there, imagining she was me, imagining what it would feel like to use his body to pleasure myself—to feel his hardness beneath me, that heat between my legs. My mouth watered. Distracted, the paper bag holding the allergy medication slipped from my hand to the floor.
Tristan turned, and his eyes widened as they met mine. After a few seconds of looking into his eyes, my legs regained the ability to move, and I hightailed it out of there.
Pulse racing, I pushed the button to the elevator more times than necessary and got in as fast as I could the second it opened. But before the doors closed, a large hand slipped between them.
CHAPTER 9
EMILY
My heart thundered against my chest as Tristan entered the elevator, shirtless and glistening, making my foolish knees weak. His musky scent filled the tight space as he panted. I could feel his breath against my face. It caused my senseless nipples to stiffen and every hair on my body to stand at attention.
What the hell is going on?
I pressed the button to go down, but we didn’t get very far before he pushed the stop button and stood in front of the panel, blocking access.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, unsure which I felt more of, anger or arousal.
“What the hell are you doing?” he clapped back.