Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 107660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
CHAPTER 20
ASPEN
Mr. D&D: Come over.
Mr. D&D: To my apartment.
Me: What?
Mr. D&D: Come. Over. To. My. Apartment.
Mr. D&D: That’s an order.
Me: *Cocked brow*
Mr. D&D: I think the words you’re looking for are, “Yes, Sir.”
Me: Why?
Mr. D&D: Because I’ve waited long enough, and it’s time I get what I want.
Me: And what is that?
Mr. D & D: I want to hear you scream.
Mr. D&D: 7pm. Friday.
I read over the messages, soaking in our first conversation in almost a week.
Because I want to hear you scream.
Anxiety and excitement swirled.
Remembering all those years ago when I abandoned myself so wholly that I didn’t care what I said or did pierced my chest with a sharp reminder of the cost.
Remembering just a few days ago the effort it took to hold back the cries of pleasure clawing their way up my throat while Lucian soothed the pinch to a warm ache.
Past and present warred back and forth.
I want to hear you scream.
In the end, the present won, leaving a deliciously heavy heat sinking deep into my stomach, down to my core with a heady beat. My legs squeezed around the ache, all the more intense since it’d been so long since he’d last tried to make me scream.
Because I hadn’t let him try.
Because I’d avoided him.
Marry me.
My heart thundered against my chest every time I replayed those words. Every time I remembered them passing his lips, I turned them over again and again, trying to understand if the muscle behind my ribs beat harder in warning or urgency. However, as if thinking of the memory was like staring at the sun, I couldn’t withstand the intensity and pulled back, shoving it aside.
To keep it there, that also meant staying away from Lucian. It meant ignoring his emails telling me to meet him for lunch. It meant avoiding his eyes across the table at a meeting, despite the desperate urge to glare when he sat next to Emily. It meant sighing in relief and ignoring the drop in my chest whenever he didn’t show up at all.
Marry me.
Since I didn’t have an answer, I didn’t go to him. If I didn’t see him, he couldn’t ask.
Except once.
Once I gave him an opportunity to demand a yes or no.
I’d lost a potential client to a larger company, and I’d been so confident and sure of succeeding that the loss knocked the ground from under my feet. I’d stormed into his office ready to snap. He’d taken one look at me and told me to lock the doors and bend over his desk. No questions asked. He’d shoved up my skirt and brought his hand down without mercy, the sharp bite of pain stealing my anxiety. I’d walked in with the weight of my own doubts crushing the air in my lungs and relished the slow grip of his long fingers around my neck. I lost myself to him covering my back with his body to whisper in my ear, commanding me to breathe.
Despite not answering his absolutely insane question, he accepted me coming to him. Despite the way I left without saying yes to his proposal, he still gave me what I needed. Despite the way I ignored his request for a legal contract between us, he still upheld the not so legal one that got us there in the first place.
The reminder that he never withheld one to get the other was all the reason I needed to say yes to going to his place. Even when I knew it probably meant my time was up on avoiding a response.
Because I want to hear you scream.
I hit send and tossed my phone aside, preventing myself from taking it back. Then I immediately darted to my closet and started picking out what to wear.
A skater skirt.
A thick sweater—one that unbuttoned.
No bra.
I was all about easy access, not bothering to hide my neediness.
And heeled boots—of course. Ones that added a few inches, so maybe I’d be looking at his chin rather than his collar bone when I tried to look down my nose at him before he controlled my every move.
I forwent driving and called a car to drop me off, leaving the night open-ended. But excusing it as the fact that I might have a few drinks and wanted to make it home safely.
I scoffed at my own lie.
When I got out of the car, I wasn’t surprised to be standing at the most expensive building in Cincinnati, or the fancy doorman and marbled foyer. I wasn’t shocked when I was told to head to the penthouse to find the man who inched his way closer, day by day, to owning every part of me.
He welcomed me into a foyer with an option to go left or right. The small area fooled me into believing I might find a regular home beyond, but either direction led to an opening that revealed the most luxurious apartment I’d ever seen.