Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
She gasps as I kiss her ardently. There’s no doubt about who initiates the kiss this time. She smooths her hands up my arms and wraps them around my shoulders, standing on her tiptoes as she grinds her body against mine. I groan, guiding her to the couch.
But a second later, she presses her hand against my chest and shoves me so that there’s some distance between us. “We can’t,” she whispers.
“We—” My cell phone rings again. “Dammit. I’m sorry, Callie.” I sit up.
“You don’t have to apologize.”
I check it—and yep, it’s Sloane again. “I’ve booked us a table at that restaurant around the corner from your office,” she says. “Le Franc-Tireur. Is that okay, Gray?”
“Sure,” I tell her. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She laughs, trying to sound seductive. I know this because she used that same laugh in the months after she told me she was pregnant, back when we were both making an effort to build some kind of connection. “See you soon, handsome…”
I hang up, feeling sick, putting the phone in my pocket. Callie looks at me closely. She’s searching me in that just-Callie way. “What was that about?”
“Sloane,” I mutter. “She wants to meet tomorrow.”
“Why?”
I shrug. “I have no idea.”
Callie touches my chest again, curls her hand into a fist, her fingernails scraping against me. “Maybe… but there’s something, isn’t there?”
“You don’t need to go, Callie.”
“And you don’t need to change the subject,” she quips back.
I let out a long, drawn-out breath. “Apparently, Sloane feels threatened by you. Wes thinks she’s going to start talking about custody, lawyers, court battles, all that, if…” But I can’t bring myself to say it.
Callie does it for me. “If you don’t fire me. If I don’t leave.”
I nod, misery gripping me, flaring bleak in my gut. “But she has no right to do that.”
I grab Callie again, sinking my hands into her hips and pulling her close. She makes that attractive moaning noise, part surprise, part desire, partly just Callie pleasure. This time, she throws her arms around me with that same air of desperation, feeling as though she can’t get enough. I greedily and hungrily claim her lips.
Our kiss takes us back down to the couch again, her body grinding against mine. I can feel the heat of her lust, her sex warm through her clothes. I push my groin against her, my rod stiffening, my tip pulsing with pure need. She pants and shifts her hips against mine.
“We can’t,” she whispers urgently. “This is wrong.”
“It feels so right,” I groan.
“You can’t lose your daughter for me,” she says coldly, pushing me again.
I roll away, feeling a mixture of rejection and desire. She sits up and brushes down her clothes. Her pert nipples peak through her T-shirt.
“What if we listened to Emery?” I groan.
Callie looks at me sharply. Her cheeks are flushed. Her breath comes fast.
“What if we accepted that there’s something real here, Callie? Sloane will get jealous, sure, but she can’t resent me for having a girlfriend and inviting my girlfriend to move in with us. She can’t resent me for finding a stepmom for Emery. She has no right. It wouldn’t hold up in court. What if—”
Callie is suddenly on her feet, her fists balled up at her sides. “What are you saying?” she hisses.
“You know what I’m saying.” I leap to my feet and loom over her. “If we’re going to make this work, we’ll have to move fast.”
“And we’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope, pray, that it all works out. That we’re the ten perfect, five percent, whatever it is of relationships that just work? And if it ends, we’re right back where we started—breaking a little girl’s heart. And how can you be so sure Sloane won’t use this as fuel to fight a custody battle? And—and—”
My heart shrivels when she coughs back a sob.
“What?” I whisper.
“What if you’re like him?” she whimpers.
“Like who?”
“Like the man who controlled me my entire life. Like the man who still controls my mom. I’ve spent nearly ten years trying to escape that control.”
Her words hit me like a punch in the gut. “You’re asking me if I’m a controlling lunatic like that goddamn cult leader? You know me better than that, Callie.”
“But we don’t know each other,” she hisses. “Emery can say she loves me because she’s a kid who hasn’t seen the world. But we have to be smarter than that. We both know that these feelings, whatever the heck they are, could vanish. And then we’d be left with a bunch of commitments we can’t keep. Or maybe I’d just be your pet.”
I take her hand and stare straight into her fearful gaze. “Look me in the eye and tell me you think I’m some controlling freak.”
She pulls her hand away and averts her gaze, but I hold tight to her hand, refusing to let go. “I’m not sure I can take that chance.”