Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
She watches me with those cornflower blue eyes, so limpid and innocent that it makes my heart jackhammer against my ribs, knowing that just a few months ago, I could get her to melt with one smirk or one low-voiced order. Now she’s all business, clinical, as if cataloguing my flaws for a future case study.
“So what was it between us then?” she says at last. “Just a game? A way to jerk off your ego between deadlines?”
Her voice is steady, but there’s a quiver at the end, a chip in the ice. I want to reach for her, but I know better than to touch a live wire.
“It wasn’t a game,” I say, but even I hear the bullshit in my voice. “It was structure. The roleplay, the stories, they were an opening with whatever woman I was spending time with.”
Kat stares at me.
“So you’ve done all those roleplays before?”
I flush harshly and contemplate lying, but I can’t. Not now, when so much is at stake.
“I have,” I say in a low voice. “The professor-student scene, the naughty stepdaughter, the BDSM club. I’ve done them before.”
“With other women,” Kat interjects.
I’m so ashamed that I can’t meet her eyes, and stare at the table.
“Yes,” I say in a quiet voice. “I’ve scened with other women.”
Kat continues to stare at me, her gaze unflinching.
“And the plaid skirt? The cuffs? Were those used by other women as well?”
I shake my head immediately, lifting my gaze to meet her eyes.
“No, never,” I vow. “We always bought new everything whenever a new girl was coming to the cabin. I admit, Jonah, my agent, did the purchases. He went on buying sprees and had it all delivered. I’m so sorry about all of this because it sounds impersonal and manipulative. Because it is.”
Kat nods and narrows her eyes, and I see the little tic in her jaw. “But the romance novel. That was a joke, too?”
I stare at the coffee in my hands, choosing my words carefully. “It was a lie. At first. Again, Jonah said if I pretended I was doing research for a new genre, it’d make the arrangement seem more legit—like I really needed help with a book. So I sold you that story.”
Kat’s lips go white where she presses them together. She looks away, toward the blank brick wall, as if the answer might be tattooed there in invisible ink.
“But you wrote it anyway,” she says, voice flat as an ice shelf.
I nod, feeling the sting of every word. “I wrote it because you got under my skin, sweetheart. Because every night you’d walk around in that towel or that little threadbare nightshirt, and I couldn’t think about anything but you. Because I wanted to see what would happen if I just let myself want you, all the way. Even if I technically was supposed to be working on my next thriller.”
She takes a long, slow sip from her mug, letting the words sink in. The light from the streetlamp outside catches in her hair, making a gold halo that sets my teeth on edge with want. Even when she’s angry, she’s the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen—maybe more so now, with her guard up, every muscle tensed.
I can’t help it. I watch her lips. Kat’s worrying the lower one between her teeth, same as in the book, and it makes me remember every time I made her beg for it, every time she called me “Daddy” with a voice so desperate I thought I’d lose my mind. The memory does things to me I don’t want to admit, not here, not now.
She finally turns, and I see her pupils blown wide, the way she used to get just before a kiss. But the moment is gone before I can reach for it. She sets the mug down with a precise clink.
“So,” she says. “The whole thing was a setup. You were never going to keep me.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t think I could. I figured you’d leave, just like all the rest. But when you did—fuck, Kat, it felt like someone ripped the whole world out from under me.”
She cocks her head, a gesture I know too well. “Then why didn’t you say something? Why not chase after me?”
My voice drops, barely a whisper. “Because I was a coward. Because I thought I didn’t deserve you. Because I’d been in the scenario a dozen times previously, and the narrative was going off the rails. I didn’t know what to do.”
For a second, I think she’ll soften. Maybe even reach across the table. But then she leans back, arms wrapping tighter around herself, and the ice sets in again.
“You could have just told me,” she says. “You could have let me decide if I wanted to be your research subject, your sex toy, or something else.”