Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 60768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 304(@200wpm)___ 243(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 304(@200wpm)___ 243(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
“I think I deserve a call to my sister now.”
The words hit like a slap across the face.
All the warm, floating pleasure that had been flooding my veins evaporates in an instant. My stomach drops hard. My chest tightens until it actually hurts to breathe, like someone has wrapped a band around my ribs and is pulling it tighter with every heartbeat.
Of course.
Of course that’s why he did this.
He doesn’t want me. He never wanted me. He wants his sister back. I’m just the tool standing between him and Enley. The enemy he’s willing to seduce, to drop to his knees for, to lick and suck and make moan until I fall apart, if it gets him one step closer to freeing her. Every filthy word, every slow drag of his tongue, every time he called me baby and told me how wet I was… it was all strategy. A calculated move in the game he’s playing to save his family.
I feel sick.
Mortification burns through me, hot and humiliating, flooding my cheeks and making my eyes sting. How could I have let myself fall for it? How could I have stood here panting and wet and trembling while he played me so perfectly? I’m supposed to be the one in control. The enforcer. The woman who never lets anyone close enough to hurt her, let alone get on their knees and worship her like that. I’ve spent years building walls so thick no one could touch the real me, and in one reckless night I let him tear them down with nothing but his mouth and a few dirty words.
I force my mask back into place, walls slamming up so fast I almost feel dizzy from the whiplash. My voice comes out cold and steady, nothing like the breathless, moaning woman who had just ridden his face against the wall.
“You can call her in the morning.”
I don’t wait for his reaction. I don’t want to see whatever triumph or pity might be in his eyes. I turn on my heel and rush up the stairs before he can see the way my eyes are stinging with unshed tears. My heels click too loudly on the hardwood, echoing like accusations with every step. The dress suddenly feels ridiculous and cheap, like a costume I never should’ve put on. It clings to my skin in all the wrong ways now, a reminder of how easily I’d let myself believe the performance.
The second my bedroom door shuts behind me I lean back against it, pressing my forehead to the cool wood. My legs are still weak, knees threatening to buckle. My body’s still humming with the aftershocks of what he did to me, clit pulsing faintly, thighs sticky. And my heart… my stupid, traitorous heart feels cracked wide open, raw and aching in a way I haven’t let it feel in years.
How could I have fallen for him?
Even a little. Even for a second.
He’s the prisoner. The mark. The man whose sister I’m helping keep hostage. He’s everything I’m supposed to use and discard when the job is done. Yet somewhere between the ridiculous pool party where he played the perfect husband, the sweaty training session in the backyard where our bodies kept brushing, and the way he looked at me tonight in this black dress like I was the only woman alive, I let myself want him. Let myself imagine what it would feel like if he actually saw me. If he actually cared. If this thing burning between us was real instead of just another weapon in his fight to save Enley.
Stupid. So fucking stupid.
I kick off my heels, the sharp sound satisfying as they clatter across the floor. I rip the dress over my head in one angry motion and toss it into the corner like it burned me. Then I pull on an oversized t-shirt that swallows me whole, the soft cotton a small comfort against my still-sensitive skin.
I grab the encrypted phone from my nightstand with shaking hands and dial the only number I can trust right now.
Marlo answers on the second ring, voice brisk. “Talk fast.”
I sink onto the edge of the bed, curling my free arm around my waist like I can hold myself together. My voice comes out barely above a whisper, cracked and raw. “I’m falling for him. Poe. I let things go too far tonight. He… he went down on me right in the entryway. I almost let him fuck me. I wanted him to. God, Marlo, I wanted him so bad I could barely think straight.”
There’s a long, heavy silence on the other end. When Marlo speaks again her voice is sharp and low, edged with steel. “Bottle that shit up right now. That cannot happen. You hear me? Lock it down.”
“I know it’s wrong,” I say, pressing a hand hard to my chest like I can physically push the feelings down into nothing. “I know.”