Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Eve fumbled with her phone where she’d left it on one of the tables, her fingers tapping on the screen a few times before the music stopped playing.
Silence dropped like a velvet curtain.
They were both breathing hard.
“What was that, Eve?” Madden said, turning around fully.
A flippant shrug. “What was what? I’m short on dancers these days. I need to know what I’m doing in case I ever have to fill in.”
Madden laughed, the low incredulous sound echoing off the stage. “I was against you performing before, but now that I’ve seen what it does to you? No, I don’t reckon I’d like anyone to see you like that.”
“Like what?”
Slowly, he wove around the single table that sat between them, noting the way she stared at his chin, instead of meeting his eyes. “Hot, love. Turned on.”
Her breath hitched. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.” When she closed her eyes, Madden stepped into her space, stopping just short of their bodies touching, no idea how she’d react if she felt how hard she’d made his dick. But the pleasure he got from pressing his mouth against her ear made up for the pain. He’d take all the pain in the world to spend any length of time this close to her. Close enough to smell her smoky peach perfume, close enough to hear her breathe. “What do you like about taking your clothes off in front of a room? You can tell me.”
“I don’t know,” Eve whispered after several seconds.
His lips brushed side to side against her ear. “Are you sure?”
She reached back and gripped the edge of the table behind her. As if she was in danger of losing her balance. “If you tell anyone—”
“Eve, you know me better than that.” Madden took a chance, settling his hand on her hip, beneath the flap of her cardigan, his thumb brushing the smooth skin of her stomach, the rush of southward heat making him burn inside his clothes. “Why would I tell anyone a goddamn thing about you when I want to be the only one who knows?”
“Madden,” she said on a gasp, on the verge of pulling away.
He pressed his thumb gradually into her hip abductor. “Tell me.”
Eve closed her eyes for a moment. When they reopened, they were more arresting than he’d ever seen them and that was saying a lot. “It’s empowering. To me. Being . . .”
“Being?”
“On . . . display like that. Being wanted. The . . .”
“Lusting.”
Her stomach hollowed against his hand, as if the word itself had inspired some relief. Or an increasing lack of it. He couldn’t be sure, but he wanted to be. “I guess.”
“You guess or you know?” he pushed in a low voice against her temple.
“I know.”
Christ.
Eve had an exhibitionist streak. He hadn’t seen that coming. At all.
If he hadn’t driven here tonight, he might never have found out.
What the hell was he going to do about it, though? This was the closest she’d ever let him get to kissing her, touching her, and he suspected the reason for that was he’d found her in a vulnerable moment. She needed to be touched.
“Have you done anything to . . . explore it?”
“No. This is enough.”
“Is it?”
“No.”
That endearing confession had Madden chuckling out of pure affection for this woman. This woman he’d seemingly been chasing unsuccessfully since the beginning of time.
And he’d be chasing her until the end of time unless he got creative.
It wouldn’t be right to use the information he’d just learned to his advantage. But here was the thing about Eve Keller. To be there for her, to effectively help her, one had no choice but to get creative. That’s how it had always been. And whether she wanted to admit it or not, she needed help now. Madden would use whatever he had at his disposal to make life better for this woman. End of story.
“Eve.”
“Yes?”
He gave in to fulfilling half of tonight’s fantasy by picking her up by the waist and settling her butt on the closest table. “I dropped by tonight for a reason.”
It took her a moment to speak, her gaze slipping down to his hands where they grasped her waist. “Dropped by? You drove almost four hours.”
“Believe me, love, it was fucking worth it.”
Eve shoved at his chest, but the assault was half-hearted.
In fact, she appeared to be hiding her pleasure over the compliment.
“Go on.”
“Go on telling you I’d pay every penny in the bank to see the show again?”
“No.” Her color deepened. “Go on, tell me why you ‘dropped by.’”
“Oh, that.” Madden wanted to remember this moment for the rest of his life, so he dropped the teasing tone and lifted her chin in his hand, waiting for her to lock in on him. “I came here to propose, Eve.”
Chapter Nine