Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Nolan used to look at me that way, utterly transfixed.
Or maybe I’m projecting.
“So … you got it?” I select a rose-pink lip stain and dab it onto my lips.
He nods. “Of course.”
“Congrats.” I can’t help wonder if anyone ever tells him that. Or if it even matters. Grabbing up businesses is just another Friday in his world. “I’m happy for you.”
“Think we’ll order champagne tonight,” he says when he snaps out of it. I exhale. All that heaviness from his gaze left me holding my breath, woefully aware of every angle my body held as he studied me. “We should celebrate.”
Champagne always brings me back to my first date with Nolan at that party, the way it flowed like a river and left delicious bubbles on my tongue that tasted like sugared lemons and gave me a sample of true freedom for the first time in my life.
“Sounds great.” I meet his gaze in the mirror, forcing a smile. And I make a silent promise to myself not to let Nolan spoil this weekend for me.
I can’t. I won’t.
He’s already ruined enough.
Thirty-Two
Trey
Present
It’s not quite eleven when we return from dinner. The hotel room is soundless and pitch black, save for the bathroom light pouring from the open doorway, illuminating a path to the bedroom like an implied invitation.
If she were any other woman, we’d have torn our clothes off by now and I’d have her pinned against the wall, hands over her head as I did what I pleased.
But Sophie’s not any other woman.
She’s the kind you savor, not the kind you devour.
She kicks off her heels, hips swaying as she makes her way to the foot of the bed. She’s somewhere between buzzed and drunk and she hasn’t stopped smiling—or chatting—all night, even taking the time to make small talk with our server. While we were leaving the restaurant, a college-aged kid stopped us and asked for a picture with me. Sophie happily took his phone and snapped three shots because his eyes were closed in the first two.
“Seattle suits you,” I say as she rubs her feet. “Maybe we should move here after the wedding.”
She smirks. “You would never leave Chicago. You’d have to uproot your entire company.”
“I know.” While I like the idea of leaving, I couldn’t do that to my employees. And the Westcott name is synonymous with Chicago. Practically royalty. I’d be pissing all over my family’s legacy if I left.
I sit beside her.
“May I?” I point to her feet, which are covered in welts the color of bitten lips.
Sophie nods, and I take her right foot, pressing my thumb along the center of her arched sole. Her skin is baby smooth, delicate and feminine, and her toes are painted a milky white.
She exhales, head tossed back until her hair nearly touches the top of the mattress. The Seattle drizzle earlier tonight dampened her waves until they became swollen and untamed, and as the evening progressed, I couldn’t look at her without picturing her naked body wrapped in sheets, sex hair spilling around her shoulders and a satisfied smile claiming her ripe mouth.
Her lips part, followed by a sweet burst of liquor-scented breath. A pleasured wince covers her pretty face.
I’m certain this is what she’d look like if my tongue were between her thighs right now …
I massage the spaces between her toes and then I work my way to her Achilles tendon before moving higher, to her calf.
“My god. How are you so good at this?” She bites her lip as if stifling a moan, eyes squeezed tight.
My cock swells, straining beneath my boxers. I massage deeper, but not too deep. Just enough to incite another breathy moan.
“All I have to do is watch your face … it tells me where I need to go.” The technique has never steered me wrong in the bedroom. But it works for this, too …
She gives me a sideways glance before trading one foot for the other.
“Thank you for celebrating with me tonight.” It was different commemorating an acquisition with someone for a change. I didn’t hate it.
“How do you normally celebrate?”
“By prepping for my next deal.”
Her eyes widen. “You don’t stop to appreciate it? You don’t take a trip or have a drink or … I don’t know, get laid?”
“Why? Are you offering?” I laugh through my nose. I’m teasing, but it doesn’t hurt to plant the seed. There’s nothing wrong with a little physical release when the moment’s right.
In my twenties, getting laid was all I cared about and there was no shortage of beautiful women clawing down my door, blowing up my phone, throwing themselves in my path—figuratively and otherwise. But after a while, my reckless ways grew unfulfilling and the women were all the same. I tried the dating thing. Raquel was my longest relationship on record, and toward the latter part of our relationship, I’d kept meaning to end it but work obligations were getting in the way so the talk got sidelined until the day I came home early and found her by the pool doing a line of blow off her tennis coach’s six-pack.