Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 101872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
“My good fucking girl.”
“If anyone else said that to me, I’d punch them in the dick,” she told him. “Weirdly, don’t feel like doing that with you.”
“Well, can’t say that my dick is sad about that,” he replied.
She grinned.
Then she leaned back to look up at him. “So as much as I appreciate the orgasm, although I should protest the fact that you gave me one in a storage closet at my work, why?”
“Why?”
“Yeah, why?”
“There have to be a reason?” he asked.
“Are you saying you just ate me out because you wanted to?”
He grew still which warned her that she’d said that wrong thing.
Fuck.
What had she said to upset him?
“Guessing none of those assholes you were with ever ate you out for the fun of it? Because they enjoyed it?”
“Uh, you would guess right.”
“Pricks.”
“Yeah, they had those. Small, ugly things too.” Hmm, she should return the favor, shouldn’t she?
Opal ignored the ugly feeling developing in her tummy at the thought of getting on her knees and sucking him off.
This is Renard.
He’s sexy and protective and kind, in his own Renard way.
Nothing like the men who had come before him. So she tried to slide onto her knees, but he held her up.
“What are you doing, Gem?” he asked.
“I was going to return the favor.”
“Right.” He drew her carefully up into his arms, leaning her back against the wall. In this position, they were facing each other. “This ain’t tit-for-tat.”
“What?” she asked, startled.
“Just because I get you off doesn’t mean you have to do the same for me.”
“It doesn’t?” she asked, shocked.
“Opal, baby, I need you to do me a favor.”
“Of course.”
“Guessing this comes from Stefan so when the things he taught you pop into your head, you need to push them back out. Because everything he said or did was fucking fucked. Understand me?”
She wasn’t sure she could promise him that. But, at the same time, she knew what he was saying was the truth.
And that she should try, at least.
“I’ll try.”
“Honest to fucking God, I’d like to resurrect him just so I could torture him painfully and slowly.”
She took a deep breath in and let it out. “Aren’t you . . . it didn’t turn you on?”
“What the fuck kind of question is that?” he asked.
She startled, holding in a moan of pain as her back protested. The painkillers were doing a good job of masking the pain, but her back still didn’t like sudden movements, she guessed.
“Didn’t like it? Fuck me, baby, you let me do that every day and I might turn into one of those happy-go-lucky assholes who are always smiling. Beginning to see why the men around here are so happy all the time, their women let them do that to them each morning before breakfast, it would be the best part of their day.”
Her brain scrambled to keep up with his words, but basically, she got that he was saying he liked it.
“Then aren’t you uncomfortable?”
He snorted. “Do you mean are my dick and balls sore because I didn’t get to come? Yep. Do I care? Is it going to make life hard for me? Is it going to make me grouchy? Do me damage? No, baby. This was about you, not me.”
Her brain reeled from that.
This was about you, not me.
Holy. Crap. Balls.
“Never had someone say that to me.”
“Then you’ve hung out with the wrong men, baby.”
Yep.
She sure had. But if there was a God, it seemed he was setting that right.
21
“I really don’t think it’s necessary to buy both sanders,” she said, staring at the large upright sander, then at the smaller one, which didn’t seem such a bad investment. Maybe she could start making her own furniture or something.
Perhaps it would take off and she’d make a heap of money.
You should just stick to what you know and not have dreams, Opal. Girls like you shouldn’t have dreams. You don’t deserve them.
Crap.
A sick feeling developed in her stomach. Stefan’s voice was infiltrating her mind more and more lately and she didn’t know why.
It was like the more that she tried not to think about him . . . the more she thought about him.
Urgh. It really sucked.
“We could just rent the floor sander, right?” she questioned.
“Am I a man?”
Weird question.
“Uh, yes.”
He slid her some side eye. “I don’t appreciate the way you hesitated over that, Gem.”
She grinned. “Apologies, your manliness. Yes, you’re a man. A very manly man. The manliest of all men. I bow down before your manliness.” She bowed and he grunted.
“A yes would have sufficed.”
It might have, but it wouldn’t have been so funny.
“What does having a dick got to do with sanders?” she asked him.
A woman in front of them turned to give her an affronted look. Opal just grinned at her. “Well? It’s a legit question, right?”