Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 124077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Now she was probably lying awake behind a closed door, wondering whether he was going to come charging through it to hurt her or to take what she wasn’t willing to give.
The thought was unbearable.
Taurex had spent weeks trying to make her feel safe with him. From the moment he first saw her at the club, he had known Terra was accustomed to males who took—males who demanded—who believed that currency entitled them to touch her body whether she wanted their hands on her or not.
So he had done the opposite. When she told him not to touch her, he hadn’t. When she became frightened by the connection between them, he left immediately. When she needed work, he gave her work and made damned certain she understood that her body had nothing to do with her employment. He had kept his hands to himself every day they worked together even when every instinct inside him urged him to reach for her.
He had been patient…or he had thought he was.
Now Taurex wondered if all his patience had been nothing but another form of deception, because Terra had not known what he knew. Every smile she gave him, every lunch they shared, every time she slipped her hand into his, Taurex had known there was a bond between them—she hadn’t.
He had told himself he was withholding the truth for her sake, but was that really true? Or had he been afraid that if he told her, she would run?
The answer came painfully quickly…both.
He had wanted to protect her from any pressure, but he had also wanted to keep her near him. And now he had wasted all the hours he’d spent trying to get her to trust him by telling her too soon that they were fated mates.
Taurex closed his eyes and bowed his head.
“Forgive me,” he whispered. “I never meant to frighten you, lovely one.”
The words disappeared into the living room, and he wondered if she would ever forgive him. He wondered if she would come to work on Monday…the thought struck so hard that Taurex sat upright.
Gods, he hadn’t even thought of that yet! Terra worked for him. If she was afraid of him now, how could she possibly return to the penthouse and spend every day alone with him?
The answer was clear. She couldn’t, and he wouldn’t ask her to.
Taurex rose and began pacing slowly across the room as he tried to think what he could do. He would pay her whatever she needed—not as a bribe, never that, but Terra had left The Doll House because he had offered her security. She had children to support and a mother to care for, and he would not allow his own stupidity to put her back in a position where she had to dance for strangers just to keep food on her family’s table.
If she quit, he would give her severance, he decided. A year’s salary, perhaps two years—enough to finish her accounting degree if she wished and enough to find another position without fear. He could also give her a recommendation, though the idea of Terra working for someone else made something savage inside him snarl with jealousy.
Taurex crushed the instinct immediately—that was exactly the kind of thinking that had frightened her. Terra was not his to direct. She could work wherever she chose, live wherever she chose and love whomever she chose, even if that male was not him.
That thought was worse than all the others, and Taurex stopped pacing as he imagined another male touching her… another male sitting at a dinner table with Cody and Lisa…another male earning Lucy’s trust. Another male hearing Terra laugh first thing in the morning and holding her when she was frightened and learning exactly how she liked to be kissed.
Pain tore through him so sharply he actually pressed a hand to his chest, but he forced himself to breathe through it. If another male made Terra happy, then Taurex would have to accept it. Was that not what loving someone meant? Wanting their happiness, even when it destroyed your own?
For one terrible moment, he wished the Goddess had never allowed him to find her.
The thought came from such a dark place that Taurex immediately hated himself for it. No, he would never wish that.
Even if Terra left him tomorrow and never spoke to him again, he would still be grateful he had known her—grateful for the month she had been in his life, grateful for every exasperated look she gave him when she discovered another unpaid invoice and grateful for the way she laughed when he said something she found unintentionally humorous.
He would be grateful that he had met Cody and Lisa and Lucy and grateful that for one evening his domicile had felt like a home rather than simply a place where he slept.