Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
At the end of the session, they spent ten minutes lying flat on their backs and just being.
Jessica stretched and sat up. “You did amazing. How do you feel?”
“Good.” And, for the first time in a very long time, it was the truth. She could feel all her worries and anxieties waiting to crowd back in, but for the moment they felt curiously distant. “Thank you. I didn’t realize how much I needed that until just now.”
“It’s addicting like whoa.” Jessica tipped her head back and closed her eyes. “Runners have their high, but yogis have serenity like no others. It’s worth its weight in gold in today’s world.”
Sloan couldn’t argue that. “I’ll be at the class tomorrow.”
“Great! I keep things pretty steady there, but you’ll be moving on to more advanced moves before you know it.” Her face lit up. “Just wait until we get to inversions. They’re a trip.”
“I look forward to it.”
Jessica’s expression changed, sharpening with curiosity. “Holy crap. Don’t look now, but our resident brooding writer is staring at you like he wants to eat you alive.”
Naturally, she looked. She couldn’t help it.
Sure enough, Jude stood on his porch, a beer dangling from his fingers, and even across the distance, she could read his hunger for her. Could feel her body already responding despite the fury she still felt over how he’d walked out last night.
He wanted her? Well, that’s just too bad.
She turned back to Jessica, gathered her newly found courage around her. “Is there a place around here to get a drink?” One night didn’t make her much of a drinker, but it seemed like a big deal to ask the other woman to a meal.
Jessica slanted her a look. “Are you sure? If he was looking at me like that, I’d already be in his bed.”
“He can wait.” She couldn’t believe she’d said the words, couldn’t believe she was going to ignore the way her body called to him, even after the single time together, but apparently she had some of that pride that seemed to run through the O’Malleys like bedrock. Jude had hurt her last night when he left, intentionally or no.
And his bold words didn’t hold up to the light of day.
Or that was what she told herself as she ignored his silent command to come to him, and smiled at Jessica. “So what do you say?”
Jessica’s green eyes twinkled. “I say that you’re a woman I want to get to know better. Let’s do it.”
Chapter Eight
Jude watched Sloan walk away, blatantly ignoring his silent command, and couldn’t stop a sliver of admiration. She was so damn quiet—more mouse than woman—but she seemed to be growing a spine by the second. Or discovering she had a spine beneath all the delicate layers. He shouldn’t like it. She’d be more biddable and controllable if she was the mouse he’d originally planned on.
But he found himself smiling a little as he drained his beer and headed back inside, the late afternoon sunlight warm and heavy on his back. She’d come around. She wouldn’t be able to stay away, no matter how pissed she was about his leaving—and she was pissed. No woman worth her salt would allow him to walk away like that without so much as a ripple of something.
She’s a means to an end. That’s it.
He locked the door behind him and stripped off his shirt, moving to the punching bag he had strung up in the corner of the room. His computer’s screen saver taunted him, tempting him to go over his notes on the Sheridan family for the millionth time. He wouldn’t find anything new. Fuck, he had all the information memorized.
Jude rolled his shoulders and paused to wrap his hands. He didn’t always take that extra step when he wanted to use the bag, but he didn’t need Sloan asking questions about why his knuckles were all messed up. Checking the wrap, he nodded to himself. It’d hold.
He delivered a devastating punch that sent the bag rocking. It felt good. Better than good.
Colm Sheridan had, for all accounts and purposes, calmed the fuck down after he massacred Jude’s family. And now a Sheridan-O’Malley alliance dominated the majority of Boston.
The Sheridan-O’Malley alliance that had been created when Callista Sheridan married Teague O’Malley.
Jude hit the bag again and again, his adrenaline spiking. Taking out Callista Sheridan was the blow that would break Colm. More than his son’s death. More than finding out that said son had been plotting his betrayal. More than anything else Jude could do to him.
His muscles warmed with each punch. Right hook. Left hook. Jab. Jab. Jab. It wasn’t enough to escape that woman’s face.
It shouldn’t matter that Callista was a woman. She was no more innocent than he was. Even if he’d never found evidence that she knew what her traitorous brother and aunt were up to, she’d killed her goddamn fiancé just under two years ago, which should put her firmly in the same category that Jude was in.