Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Oh. That was the last thing she’d expected. She opened her eyes as he sat back. “It was just a quick fuck in an alley.” A really outstanding fuck. Even if she’d been able to pretend last night was a freak thing…She couldn’t do that now. Not when the chemistry was still sparking between them so hot, it was a wonder she didn’t burn up with it.
“Sure it was.” His low chuckle, so similar to the one he made last night before he was inside her, had her squirming.
It would have taken only the tiniest of pushes to take that kiss into the bed and lose themselves in each other. She was already poised on the brink and he’d barely done anything. Even now, it was a struggle to take her hands off his thighs and move away. She concentrated on stopping touching him. “Exactly. Nothing to write home to Mom about.”
“Olivia.”
She stopped backing away, her heartbeat picking up. “Yeah?”
“Let me take you out on a real date. It’s obvious there’s something between us. I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell don’t want to let it pass without exploring it.”
Longing like nothing she’d ever known rose up inside her. A real date. She wanted to say yes, to put on a pretty dress and doll herself up and let Cillian take her somewhere nice. They’d spend the meal flirting and talking and then afterward, he’d kiss her again and, this time, there would be nothing standing in the way of taking things further.
Nothing except her past and his family.
It’s too big a risk, no matter how he makes you feel. Hell, the way he makes you feel only adds to the risk. This isn’t some casual dicking around—this could be ruinous.
“I can’t.” She stood. “I’m sorry.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Both. She walked to the nightstand where he’d tossed the washcloth, and picked it up, desperate for anything to distract her from the half-naked man watching her far too closely. “I have a whole lot of shit in my past that’s just waiting to rise up and kick me in the face again, and you have…” She motioned in his direction. “Your life. Your family. Whatever you’re running from. It would never work.”
“I’m asking for a date, sweetheart—not a lifetime commitment.”
Maybe, but there was nothing simple about her life right now, and she had a feeling he didn’t know the meaning of the word, either. I could lose myself in a man like this. That was reason enough without everything else to stay the hell away from him. “It’s not a good idea.” No matter how much she suddenly wanted to say yes.
He gave her a long look. “Or maybe it’s the best damn idea either of us has had. Life is too short, Olivia. Why not take your happiness where you can find it, even if it’s not forever?”
She froze. When he put it like that…She’d been so busy running and trying to just survive that she hadn’t taken a single thing for herself in longer than she could remember. Not until last night. What was one more night in the grand scheme of things? Even if it went well, he was right—it was one date. It wasn’t like he was asking her to marry him.
You’re just looking for any excuse to say yes. She unfolded and refolded the wet washcloth. “I don’t know.”
He didn’t say anything else, just watched her with that heated look that made her want to cross over to him and crawl into his lap. She turned away, but it didn’t help. She could feel him watching her, which made her think of that kiss…which led right back into imagining another kiss. More than a kiss.
One night won’t kill me. It might even give me the breathing room I desperately need.
Flimsy excuse firmly in hand, she turned back to face him. “Okay. One date.”
And she’d pray to the God she wasn’t sure she believed in that she wasn’t making a horrible mistake.
* * *
Sergei stood out on the street, looking up at Beacon Hill Hotel. He didn’t like that his Olivia had taken the O’Malley there, and he liked it even less that she was still up there. When Dmitri sent him to Boston to keep an eye on her, he’d thought it was a reward, a chance to finally get close to her again. Now he wasn’t so sure. It had been over a year since he could last call her his and mean it, but he still couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that she was walking into a hotel with that goddamn bastard.
He didn’t like thinking about the possibility that his Olivia had turned into a whore.
His phone rang, a welcome distraction. Spending time thinking about what she was doing up there with that bastard made him want to march through the door and deal out the sort of pain he was known for.