Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Elliot laughed. The sound was pleasant, genuine. “No.” His expression became sober when he locked eyes with me. “It doesn’t bother me that I’ve managed to convince an insanely smart and successful woman to spend her very expensive time with me. For free.” He looked around the room again. “Well, not entirely for free since I plan on enjoying this room and that food and not paying a dime.” He winked.
I searched his attractive face for anything that might prove that he was lying.
Nothing. Not a hint. And I was adept at telling when people were lying. Either Elliot was the best liar I’d ever come across, squandering his talents as a small-town fisherman, or he was telling the truth. I didn’t know which was more digestible for my cynical brain.
“I’m guessing you ordered all the food because you wanted to get your—or rather, my—money’s worth, and because you have some kind of code against fucking a drunk woman?” I asked instead of trying to probe him further.
I was going to do the unthinkable with Elliot… I was going to take a man at his word.
Elliot stepped forward, hands clasping my hips, the playful look slipping from his face and being replaced by one I felt everywhere.
“I do have a code against fucking drunk women.” He proved yet again he was good, noble. As if I needed convincing.
He tucked a hair behind my ear with practiced gentleness that made me shiver. Then his hand circled my neck, not tenderly. His grip was powerful, a little scary.
“But I don’t have a code against fucking you drunk, Calliope,” he murmured, lips against my neck. “In fact, it’s on my very long list of ways I want to fuck you.” His finger trailed down my collarbone, featherlight against my skin.
His lips ghosted over the underside of my jaw. The dichotomy of the tenderness of his lips and the borderline violence of his grip was exhilarating.
“It’s taking considerable self-restraint not to fuck you with your hands pressed against that window there.” He nodded his head behind me. I didn’t look, couldn’t. I didn’t want to be separated from the expression on his face. I knew he was nodding to the floor-to-ceiling view that looked out on the wide expanse of the troublesome ocean.
I didn’t need to look to see the mental image his words conjured. I felt it. Everywhere.
“Why don’t you?” I asked. Or maybe I begged.
I wasn’t embarrassed at the plea in my voice. I was beyond that.
His hand on my neck flexed. “Because, Calliope, I will take a highly educated guess and say you haven’t eaten today. Because you were too busy running, making calls, trying to wrestle control of this situation. Then you went straight to martinis. And as much as I want to lay ruin to your body, what is most important to me is that you fuel it, nourish it. Treat it with the care it deserves. Because you need your strength for what I have planned for you.”
Due to the martinis, I wasn’t as sharp as I liked to be. But I still heard every word in stark detail, as if they were sharpened blades.
They cut through me like a hot knife through butter. I could practically feel the lust in his tone. That was nice, to be sure, but it wasn’t what tore through my very insides. It was the true care in them. The concern.
He was putting my needs above his own.
Such a simple thing, him wanting me to eat. So benign, which was why it was unfathomable that it caused my eyes to blur, and then worse, leak.
I was not a crier. Embarrassingly, I did it once in a board meeting the first year I was in New York. Not out of fear or sadness but out of anger. That had been my one Achilles’ heel that had followed me since my early childhood. I rarely cried. It was something my mother commented on. Only when I was really, really angry did I burst into tears. And according to her, when I did cry, I’d be angry and embarrassed at the tears, even as a first grader. It was something I wrestled against but could somehow never get the hang of. Kip and Rowan would tease me about it, which only fueled my need to control my emotional outbursts. I’d curbed them for the most part, but that day in the boardroom, I’d let one escape.
One fucking tear.
And that had opened the floodgates for the men in the room to justify every single stereotype they’d established about women. Too emotional, weak, easily manipulated, controllable, and unworthy of any powerful positions.
Only once did I let that happen. And it had taken me years to craft my reputation, to claw my way to the top, to be the one men feared they might cry in front of instead of the other way around.