Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“My father built that company from nothing, and he wants a Bennett running it when he’s done. And that’ll be me. Make no mistake about it.”
“Are you trying to scare me? Nothing you’ve said makes me love you less.”
“I don’t want to scare you. I want you to know me and to love me in spite of the parts of me that aren’t always good.”
“Oh, you mean the way you love me.”
“Baby, I love you every way there is.” He gently bit the curving bow of her top lip.
“We’re here.”
“This is your place?” She’d envisioned an apartment in the heart of the city. A high rise. Shiny, glass, doorman. This was a townhome. Three stories. Large and imposing, but charming. “Where are we?”
“TriBeCa. And, no, it’s not my apartment. It’s the house where I grew up. Well, at least until my parents divorced.”
“You live here? But I thought—”
“It’s a recent development. Come on.”
It was spacious, yet homey. Luxurious, yet quaint.
“It’s empty,” she said.
“For now. I was hoping…well, I was hoping you’d help me fill it.”
Fill it? With what? Furniture? Laughter? Love? Children? Where had all the bravado she’d shown Sofie gone? Miss “I’m Marrying Walsh Bennett” almost lost her dinner as soon as he mentioned a future. She had to make it through divorce court before she could even entertain “filling” this house with anything. She feigned interest in the gleaming hardwood floors.
“These are beautiful.” She deliberately didn’t look at him, provoking a deep, amused rumble from his broad chest.
“Yes, they’re great floors.” He lifted her chin to look at him instead of the hardwoods, a small smile on his face. “Baby, that wasn’t a proposal.”
Her shoulders dropped with a little relief and a little disappointment.
He took her left hand, stroking the ring finger with his thumb.
“You’ll know when I’m proposing.” He kissed her empty finger. “Let me show you your room.”
They mounted the stairs and turned left. Walsh gestured to the right.
“The room I slept in growing up is that way,” he said. “You’ll be in my parents’ old room.”
“Oh, no, Walsh, you should have the master. I don’t want to put you out.”
“Do you honestly think I’m gonna sleep down the hall with you here?”
“Maybe I’ll lock you out!”
She took off running, and he chased her.
“You don’t even know which room it is.” He laughed behind her.
Kerris skittered down the hall in her precipitous heels, jerking open the first door she came to, dashing in only to skid to a stop. It was a huge bedroom with a large bed at its center. The far wall was made almost entirely of glass, providing a glorious view of the city’s distant skyline. She walked over to the window, pressing her palm flat to the glass. The city really was captivating. She thought of Rivermont, with its quaint shops, busybodies, and the river as its pulsing, life-giving heart. She wished she could live in two places at once, inhabit two worlds.
“It’s beautiful.” She heard the wistful note in her own voice.
“You took the words.” Walsh walked up behind her, feathering kisses down her neck, skimming her bare spine with his fingers. “Don’t wear this again.”
Her breath came in short gasps from the steam his mouth and fingers stoked inside of her. He squatted behind her, possessing the small of her back with his mouth, running his tongue over the base of her spine, licking between the bones.
“I thought you liked it.”
“Me and every other man at the Met tonight.” He rose to his full height, liberating her hair from the pins until it flooded his hands. “I thought I was gonna have to knock some heads together before the night was over.”
Walsh pulled the almost nonexistent straps from her shoulders with his teeth. He scooped his big hands under her arms, lifting her until they were eye to eye. He plunged into her mouth, hungry, seeking, ravishing. Kerris clawed her fingers around his head, clutching him closer, deeper. She felt the cool slide of the silky material against her skin when it finally succumbed to the laws of physics and gravity, pooling on the floor beneath her feet. Walsh held her suspended in the air. He laid her down on the huge bed, locking eyes with her before he discovered her body with worshipping hands—like Magellan or Columbus, exploring a glorious new world, but one of flesh and delicate bone. He licked at the beauty mark above her right breast, a drop of dark chocolate in the silkiest honeyed cream of her skin.
“I never tire of this.” The emotion simmering in Walsh’s eyes sent a wave of heat and then a shiver along her bare skin. “Of tasting you.”
Kerris’s hands, urgent and seeking, pushed the jacket away from his shoulders, glorying in the width, the breadth, of him. She pulled at the buttons of his shirt, forcing her fingers to slow even as her breath came in short pants.