Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
“Nope, nothing wrong here. All is hunky-dory in the land of Primrose.” She pauses. Inhales. “If we discount what happened last night, I suppose.”
Because she is fucking the viticulturist?
I push the ridiculous thought away, as I casually rub my hand across my smooth cheek. The action does not reflect my internal world as I suffer her words, her meaning, like a fist thrust beneath my ribs. “Discount,” I repeat dully.
“Disregard. Forget, if you prefer.”
“I know what it means,” I snap because last night wasn’t an accounting error—an incorrect entry on a fucking P&L statement. I don’t want to discount, disregard, or fucking ignore what happened between us. I don’t think I can forget it, not when I want to do it again.
I’m no stranger to sex, but it feels as though the memory of her might be imprinted on my mind, and on my body for some time yet. The way her lips trembled under mine, and how I shook like a boy with his first woman.
I’ve never before acted so recklessly.
I have never been inside a woman bare since Allegra.
Fuck, I so desperately want to be inside Primrose again.
“It’s what I want to do. Please,” she adds, hardly as a courtesy.
Something hot and stubborn unfurls in my chest. I won’t allow her to rewrite what passed between us just because the daylight hours have made its memory inconvenient.
I place my hand to her shoulder, my tone soothing. “Primevère—”
“It’s Primrose,” she says, shrugging it off. “I want to go back to how things were before.”
“I don’t follow.”
“I want to go back to you not liking me.” Her chin comes up, and she regards me with such magnificent disdain, somehow managing to look down her nose at me. It’s quite an impressive feat for someone who doesn’t even reach my shoulder.
“What gives you the impression I didn’t like you?”
“You did,” she answers immediately. “I don’t think that should change just because we almost had sex.”
“Almost had sex?”
“Technically,” she mutters mulishly.
“Little flower, you are fooling yourself.”
“And, technically,” she adds as though I haven’t spoken, “I should also be able to leave because you said I had to—”
Laughter burst out of me. “You were seconds away from coming around my cock for a third time. And have you forgotten how your pussy pulsed around me when I called you a good girl? A good girl for taking my cock so well?”
“There’s no need to be so coarse,” a sudden prim and proper Primrose asserts. “You said three times, and—”
“Come here,” I say curling my fingers. “Let’s fix that,” I add, delivering a two-fingered tap my mouth. “Right now.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing. We both know it’ll take but a minute.”
Her arms unfurl, her hands curling into fists by her side. “And this is why I don’t like you!”
“I’d say you like me well enough.”
“I’ve never liked you,” she explodes. “Not since the night we met when you were a total dick.”
“I was a dick?” I demand, thumbing my chest.
“Yes.” Her eyes cut to mine, fiery and fierce. “And that was before you pushed me out the door. Then when I turned up at your house,” she adds, beginning to count my transgressions off against her fingers, “when Emmy was considerate enough to arrange cover for the weekend, you looked at me like you wanted to drown me in the pool. You tried everything to make me leave, and when you couldn’t, you blackmailed me into working for you for four fucking weeks!”
“Blackmail is a strong word.”
“So is punishment. Your word, by the way.”
“It doesn’t mean I dislike you. It’s quite the opposite, actually.”
“That’s such bullshit! The only time you’ve been mildly agreeable was at dinner last night. What was that about, hmm?” Her eyes narrow. “Were you trying to get into my good graces as a way to get into my knickers again?”
“I don’t remember you wearing any.”
“Urgh, you are the worst!”
“You don’t seem to think so when you’re riding my face.”
“And this is why I don’t like you!” she announces, throwing her hands up in the air.
“Primevère, if you’re going to lie to me, at least choose a lie I’m less qualified to disprove.”
Not only is this not going how I expected, but things are also getting away from me. I’d been expecting awkward this morning. A touch of embarrassment, perhaps. Blushes and stolen glances over the top of her coffee cup. The kind of delightful disquiet that says, I can’t get you out of my head. Because that’s how I fucking feel. Where the fuck have the denials come from?
“It was a mistake.”
“Which time?” I don’t mean to taunt. “The club? The kitchen? Or being in here, alone with me again.”
“All of the above,” she retorts, her gaze resolutely ahead as though the estate’s grounds are infinitely more interesting. “And I’m only here right now to say enough, that we can’t… not anymore.”