Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 106150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
I wanted him to know that I liked who he was as a person—intelligent and protective and irreverent and kind. I wanted him to know that talking with him had felt so comfortable I’d ended up telling him truths I couldn’t tell anyone else, even when I should have lied. I wanted him to look at me and see someone who wasn’t out to use him—not for donations, or to green-light my project, or even to give me contacts, no matter how badly I needed them.
“Bash. Sebastian. I… I meant…”
“Mmm?” He turned his head toward me, eyes still closed, breathing still a bit ragged. “I came so hard I can’t feel my toes, and my brain short-circuited. Go ahead and confess whatever you like, sweetheart. I promise, right now, nothing can shock me.”
My courage deserted me entirely.
“I’m the Burrito Bandito!” I blurted.
Bash’s eyes popped open, and we stared at each other as my confession landed with an awkward clunk between us.
“Well,” he said slowly. “Apparently, I was wrong.”
TEN
BASH
I stared at Rowe, chest heaving and heart squeezing painfully.
Had the man just confessed to being a fast-food thief? Was I experiencing oxygen deprivation? Was this how death by epic orgasm happened?
If so, that would explain a lot of things. For example, why my heart was trying to convince my brain that what I’d just experienced with Rowe was something way bigger and more life-altering than an orgasm.
“Repeat that?” I said, trying to make sense of his words.
Rowe covered his face with both hands like he was trying to conceal his blush, but it wasn’t working. “That wasn’t what I meant to say,” he groaned.
I leaned up on one elbow and brushed his damp hair away from his forehead before I could remind myself that being sweet and schmoopy was not a good idea, and then I pulled one hand away from his face.
He peered up at me, flushed and wild-eyed, sexy as hell and so damn sweet.
I wanted to devour him. To keep him in my bed for days with nothing available to him but the touch of my hands and lips, food fed to him from my fingers and tongue, and water only taken in furtive sips in the shower while I plastered him against the wall and fucked him long and hard into the cold tiles.
The fact that I could envision all of this with perfect clarity suggested my response to him was about ten notches past insanity levels, so I forced myself to shove those feels deep into a box in the back of my brain.
I cleared my throat. “Are you… are you trying to tell me you’re hungry?” I asked, still not sure why he was talking about burritos. “Do you want me to order something?”
“No! I meant…” He sighed and shook his head slightly. “You know what? Yes. Yes I’m hungry. I didn’t eat much dinner because I was too busy talking. Thank you, and please.”
I heaved myself out of bed and reached for the phone on the nightstand to call room service, ordering a variety of desserts and snacks. While I did, Rowe sat up in bed with his hands in his lap and very pointedly didn’t look at me.
“Thirty minutes,” I told him after I hung up the phone. “Want to shower before they get here?”
He nodded, summoning a brief smile as he hopped out of bed.
I could tell his nerves were returning as the afterglow wore off, and part of me wanted to scoop him up in my arms and reassure him. Fortunately, the rest of me was far more wary.
Now that Rowe knew I was wealthy and had the connections he needed to get his project seen, how long before he forgot our agreement and started dropping hints about his mysterious project? How long before he started manipulating the connection between us in order to get what he wanted?
I’d seen it happen over and over again—to Dev with his family, to Silas with Justin… hell, even to me, every time my parents reminded me what I owed to the Dayne name. With connection came the poisonous creep of expectations. The deeper the connection, the deeper that poison would spread… and the more pain it would cause when things inevitably went bad.
I liked Rowe a lot—a remarkable amount, really, for a man I’d known twenty-four hours, who’d lied to me nearly the entire time—and I admired his strength and resilience, too. It was no wonder I wanted to be close to him. But I couldn’t afford to have any illusions that the outcome with him would be different. In fact, knowing his story with his sister, knowing how desperate he was to get his project made, it seemed even more inevitable.
The smart thing to do would be to hold him at arm’s length.
But when Rowe leaped out of bed and headed to the second bedroom to take his shower—after tangling his foot in the bedsheets and doing a hop-slide-shimmy that had no right to be as sexy as it was—I couldn’t help watching him walk away… and wanting to snatch him back.