Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
And he wanted to release it.
Through an expression that was carnal.
At the door to their suite, he stopped and turned his woman to him. Frustration ate away at his internal organs—or at least it felt that way. “Lydia, I…”
As he struggled to find the words, she shook her head. “I know. You don’t have to say it, just kiss me.”
“I can’t. Not tonight.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to be gentle.”
“Then don’t be.”
He closed his eyes. Things were complicated on the surface, but simple down deep, not that the clarity helped him. “I want to fuck you. Right now—I just want to fuck you. And I can’t—”
“You can—”
“I can’t!” Without warning, his anger got the best of him and he pounded on the door. “Damn it.”
Breaking off from her, he paced around in the hallway, going back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball, his hands on his fucking bald head, his bad-balance, weak body listing to and fro like he was on the deck of a boat, his lungs incinerating from emotion.
Or the cancer.
Or both.
“I’m just so fucking mad at nothing and everything.” He wanted to grab on to his hair and pull at it, but there was nothing long enough to grip. “I’m sick of this shit. I can’t do anything—it’s a fucking triumph if I can get on my Harley and leave the driveway. I can’t fight for shit, I can’t protect you—I’m an old man and I’m useless and I’m fucking done with it.”
He had no idea what he was saying. So he shut his mouth, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at the glossy stone floor, telling himself to get a goddamn grip—
“Don’t go silent on me now,” Lydia murmured. “You need to let it all out.”
“That solves nothing.”
“Well, think of it as some exercise. Cardio is good for people, right?”
He looked up again. In the overhead light from the ceiling, Lydia’s face was stunningly beautiful, her features soaking in the illumination like she was one of those movie starlets from the forties, everything highlighted and deeply shadowed at the same time. With her hair loose around her shoulders, and her lips slightly parted—because he’d clearly surprised her with the outburst—it was as if she had been properly kissed.
Properly taken care of by a man who loved her.
“I want you,” he said hoarsely.
“You can have me—”
“No, I can’t—”
“Daniel—”
“You want to know why I went to Gus’s frickin’ hospital room as soon as I got home?” he snapped. “It wasn’t to see how he was doing. I wanted some Cialis so I could maybe get it up for you—and you know what he told me? My heartbeat’s fucked up so he ‘wouldn’t advise it.’ ” Daniel dragged a hand down his face. “The punchline? That fucking drug is used to improve the effectiveness of some cancer treatments. Ha ha. I’m a fucking outlier only when it bites me in the ass.”
As her face tightened in commiseration with his disappointment, he had a fresh wave of anger that he was putting her through so much shit.
“I’m sorry…” He rubbed his eyes and then closed them again. “The last thing you need is me going off the deep end. But I feel like I’m already dead and I—”
“Look at me.”
“—don’t know what I’m doing, what I’m saying—”
“Daniel.”
“What.” When she didn’t answer, he had no choice but to glance over. “I…—”
His breath caught. She had taken her fleece and shirt off, and was standing before him bare-chested and unapologetic about it, her breasts bathed in that light, her nipples standing out in stark relief.
“Fuck me, Daniel,” she said in a guttural voice. “Now.”
TWENTY-FOUR
JUST AFTER LYDIA and Daniel backed into their bedroom and kicked their door shut, Cathy walked down to her study and closed herself in her workspace. As she glanced around at the austere decor, she thought, Christ, would it kill her to add a little color. In a rug, maybe. A fricking throw pillow.
A damn bouquet of flowers?
Annoyed with herself, and so many other things, she went to her desk and sat down. Out of reflex, she leaned over the glossy top and checked her reflection.
“Holy shit.”
As opposed to the perma-composure she had always cultivated, her hair was a floppy mess, all kinds of blond stalks shooting off in all kinds of different directions. Running her hands through things, she tried to put some order into her follicles, but really, the stuff growing out of her head was just half the problem. The bags under her eyes were something you’d have to check at TSA, and the lack of makeup really let the sallow cast to her skin shine.
She was clean; that was about all she had going for her—and it was going to have to be enough.
Sitting back, she wrapped Gus’s fleece around herself and crossed her legs. She needed to check her email, but she knew what she was going to find there. She needed to check her phone messages, but she knew what she was going to find there. She needed to…