Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
I thought the hardest part of balancing work, grad school, family issues, and a boyfriend would be learning to squash the inner voice telling me I wasn’t enough and didn’t deserve a man like Ryder. I was wrong.
What was supposed to be a temporary detour, Ryder stepping in to run his father’s billion-dollar empire, has twisted into months of fourteen-hour days, cancelled dates, and broken plans. Ryder doesn’t want this life. The man I love is drowning under the crushing weight of a legacy he never asked for. But knowing doesn’t make the loneliness hurt any less.
I crave what we had before Ryder gave in to his family’s demands, the man who had time to kiss me breathless on the kitchen counter and spend entire nights tangled between the sheets. Most days, I feel helpless to do anything more than love Ryder through text messages and quick, passing moments. We both know it’s not enough, but how do you fight for a man who isn’t free to fight for himself?
Ryder
I will burn the world down before I lose Alex, but the empire demanding my attention is slowly leeching the life from me, and I can feel him slipping through my fingers. Some days, it feels like challenges are bombarding us from all angles, and I don’t know how to smack them down. Every time we clear one hurdle, another pops up in its place. Whether we’re battling family problems, complicated social dynamics, or our internal demons, I’m determined to keep us together and thriving.
All I hope is that it’s not too late to prove to Alex that he is the one thing I can’t live without.
Sexy, emotional, and devastatingly intimate, Heavy Pour delivers the explosive conclusion to Alex and Ryder’s love story—where passion is fierce, the stakes are high, and walking away is never an option
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
ALEX
I despised wearing a suit. I only owned one, a Men’s Warehouse clearance purchase I’d acquired for college interviews once upon a time. It made my neck itch, my shoulders couldn’t stretch, and the damn tie might as well have been strangling me, and not in a sexy way. I’d never understood how Ryder wore one of these monstrosities to work all day, every day. I’d even take my Top Shelf uniform over this monkey suit, and that consisted of nothing more than booty shorts and a loose-fitting bowtie.
But I’d worn the suit and sat my ass in the snooty Michelin Star restaurant with a smile on my face because it turned out I’d do damn near anything for my boyfriend. We were celebrating tonight, celebrating the completion of another trimester of my master’s program in robotics engineering. Dining at an upscale restaurant with a three-month waiting list for anyone who wasn’t my boyfriend was Ryder’s idea. Pizza, wings, and beer in his penthouse would have been fine by me, but he’d insisted we needed to do something special to celebrate. Two trimesters down, four to go. Now that the summer session ended, I had a few weeks to decompress before fall classes began.
As I’d slogged through project after project, the promise of these three weeks saw me through the tedium and stress. The only thing I wanted during my time off was Ryder. I wanted him on his hands and knees, on his back, in the shower, and on his kitchen counter, where we liked to sit and eat ice cream late at night, in nothing but our boxers, with sated smiles.
Well, we had done that in the beginning when I actually saw my boyfriend.
My dream staycation wasn’t kicking off on a good note, considering I’d been sitting in the restaurant nursing a glass of Ryder’s favorite cabernet for the past forty-five minutes. I couldn’t stand wine, but Ryder loved it, and I loved the pleased smile he got when he took the first sip of an expensive wine that tasted exactly like the cheap bottles to me. So I’d ordered what he loved, and I happily drank it while I waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
As forty-five minutes became an hour and the sly side-eye from the nosy waitstaff turned into blatant stares and whispered speculation, I tried not to get angry. I shouldn’t get angry. Ryder didn’t want this any more than I did. He didn’t want to be working fourteen-hour days running his father’s multi-billion-dollar empire, the empire he’d worked to distance himself from. He didn’t want the urgent middle-of-the-night overseas phone calls and constant crisis management. He didn’t want to spend his days pandering to the inflated egos of the world’s unimaginably wealthy businessmen. It was the role he’d been groomed for his entire life, but never wanted. When he’d stepped in to take over for his father after a stroke left the man unable to speak, walk, or care for himself in any functional capacity, we’d expected Ryder’s life plan to be diverted for a few weeks. When those weeks turned into a month, and he formally withdrew from the first trimester of the Master of Education program he’d been so excited about, my heart took a nosedive. As that month became three and now almost four, I started to fear that this was our new reality.
And I didn’t know what to do about it.
Ryder wasn’t happy. He woke at four every morning and returned home in the late evening, drained, frustrated, and a shell of the snarky, fun-loving man I’d hated for years before falling for. We weren’t in a good place, though we weren’t in a bad place either. We didn’t fight, scream, or make each other miserable. We just weren’t anywhere. With Ryder working over a hundred hours each week, my four shifts a week at Top Shelf, classes during the day, and family obligations, we barely saw each other. Our relationship existed in a suspended state, hoping for a moment together. I couldn’t even remember the last time we’d had sex, and I missed it.
I missed him.
I wasn’t too proud to admit I’d been excited as hell for tonight, despite having to wear a suit and eat a meal I’d still be hungry after.
“Excuse me, sir?”
I peered up into the curious face of our—my—server. “Yes?”
“Would you like us to place a call to the other member of your party?” he asked as though my cell phone wasn’t lying face up on the table next to my mostly empty wineglass.
I’d called, I’d texted, and I’d used my nonexistent telepathic powers to contact him across the ether—no reply from any of those communication methods.
“No, thank you.” I couldn’t muster a grin, even a fake one. “I’ve already heard from my boyfriend, and unfortunately, he’s delayed indefinitely at work.” The lie had my cheeks heating. I picked up my wineglass and drained the remaining contents. “I’ll close out my tab, and I apologize for keeping the table occupied for so long.”