Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
I was all raw, exposed yearning.
For… something.
Something I was sure might undo me completely if I got it.
And I was terrified that Soren was going to be the one to give it to me. Whether I wanted it or not.
But just as the knowledge of that begged me to run, Soren was pushing me right to that edge.
“There,” he murmured, lifting up to look down at me. “No,” he said as my eyelashes started to flutter closed. Close. I was so close. “I want to watch as you fall apart for me.”
Before I could even wrap my head around the truth of that phrasing, the orgasm was rolling through me—a deep, hard, pulsing pleasure that seemed to overtake my whole body as I shook, as I moaned, as I cried out his name.
I was helpless but to cling to him, to bury my face in his neck, like if I didn’t hold on, I might shatter apart.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he murmured as his hips kept surging into me, dragging it out. “So sweet for me,” he went on, making my heart clench. “So…” his voice was getting rough as his body tensed, “perfect,” he added, pressing deep, his body shuddering as he came with my name on his lips.
My own orgasm finally released its grip on me. And I realized with a horrified shaking sensation in my chest and stomach that there was wetness on my cheeks, clinging to my lashes.
Panic surged, a fluttery feeling moving through my muscles, a tightness in my chest.
“Don’t run,” Soren demanded, voice low.
How did he know that every nerve ending in my body was firing off, begging me to escape, to get away from all these sticky, complicated feelings?
Soren rolled to his side, pulling my back to his front, his arms wrapping me up, keeping me close.
“You’re safe with me,” he said, voice so soft I barely heard it.
Those words were a cooling balm to my overheated nervous system.
Despite knowing it was a mistake, I felt myself relaxing against him, sinking into the sensations of our close bodies, allowing myself to be held for perhaps the first time ever.
And somehow, even though I never, ever allowed it to happen before, I fell asleep with Soren.
As I drifted off, the only thought that crossed my mind was that he was right; I’d never felt safer in my life.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Soren
She was lying to me.
I hadn’t exactly been idle since the last time I’d seen her. I knew that, if I wanted to protect myself and my business, I had to get to the bottom of the gut instinct that Saff wasn’t what she portrayed herself to be.
It didn’t take much digging to learn that Saff Amato—or even Saffron Amato—hadn’t existed ten years ago.
She told me she’d changed her first name.
But at some point, she’d clearly changed her last one as well. Because in this day and age, it was almost impossible not to have a trail leading back to you at some point from birth to her mid-twenties.
When that search turned up nothing, I set my sights on her company. Which didn’t even exist.
Amato Holdings was simply a crummy office with a plaque on the door. Not a real business.
I honestly wasn’t even surprised by that information.
None of it ever sat right with me.
I mean, when she was in slacks, heels, and a blouse, she walked like a newborn giraffe, stumbling around on wobbly legs. But when she was in jeans, boots, and a tee? She had an undeniable swagger, a loud confidence that filled the air around her.
She wasn’t who she said she was.
And I hated being deceived, even if I knew that made me a complete hypocrite.
And, yet, I couldn’t talk myself out of wanting her, of reminding my doorman about her, of hoping and praying I might see those elevator doors slide open and have her walk in.
It had become such a fantasy that I almost didn’t believe my eyes when I walked down to find her standing there.
As soon as she was there, all that other shit, it fell away.
All that mattered was her.
Was us.
Was whatever the hell had been simmering between us since the moment we’d met.
Hell, since the moment I saw her on the street outside of my office building.
It had taken superhuman self-control to take my time with her, to go slow, to soak up every moment, each sensation.
Because some part of me was terrified I’d never get another chance.
The way she’d tensed as soon as it was done told me how dangerously close I was to that being the case.
Somehow, though, I’d convinced her to stay.
Eventually, she even melted against me as my arms held her. Then, slowly, as my fingers skimmed over her, she drifted off to sleep.
And she slept like the dead for seven straight hours.