Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Chapter Four
Nick
Faith rounds the corner looking so damn good in a pair of snug jeans, with some sort of lace top that hugs her breasts, and that makes me wish my hands were hugging them instead. And for just a moment, I contemplate marching her back upstairs, stripping her naked, and fucking her one, two, or maybe ten times while having this conversation. Or perhaps before and after. But the problem with fucking is that it makes everything better while you’re doing it, even lies, and I don’t want to feel better about my lies or invite her to spin any of her own. Not that I think Faith lies. I came looking for a liar and a killer, and all I found was a liar: me. But today is not about lies. It’s about the facts as I laid them out in my head while she slept last night.
“How was the coffee?” I ask as she steps to the opposite side of the island and sets her cup down, my gaze finding her delicate little hands—talented, gifted hands, her nude nails somehow simple yet elegant. I don’t notice women’s hands. But then, other women are not her, nor are they talented with a paintbrush, and Faith most definitely is talented.
She turns her cup upside down. “It’s empty and dry. And as for how it was. It was strong enough to make me stuff my face with croissants and weak enough to have to devour three thousand calories worth of croissants to return me to sanity.”
“Well then,” I say. “Let’s make you another cup.”
I start to move away, and she catches my hand, and I don’t remember ever feeling a woman’s touch like I do Faith’s. Like a punch in the chest, I feel it go straight to my balls, which, to a man, might just be the perfect contradiction. “I don’t want to be impaired when we talk,” she says, her pale-pink-painted lips tightening as she adds, “Tiger,” my lawyer nickname. “You’ll rip out your opponent’s throat, right?”
I turn my hand over and close it around hers. “Your Tiger, sweetheart,” I say, sensing the apprehension in her. “And the only throats I’m going to rip out are those of your enemies. You know that, right?”
“I do, actually,” she says, her eyes meeting mine. “I know, and I needed someone on my side, and suddenly you were just there. Fate, I guess, if you believe in that kind of thing, and I’m not sure I’ve told you how lucky that feels.”
“Then why are your nails digging into my hand?” I ask while guilt over the fate that I created jabs at me like a blunt, rusty blade, trying to bleed me dry.
“I’m sorry,” she says, softening her grip on my palm. “Your ‘we need to talk’ clearly has me uptight. Maybe I do need that Baileys.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” I say. “I keep a bottle of scotch in my office. Sometimes you need to take the edge off.”
“But you’re Tiger,” she says. “Confident. Arrogant and—”
“Sexy as fuck?” I supply, trying to get her to ease up a little.
And my feisty, amazing woman doesn’t disappoint, smacking me down. “Are you?” she quips back, making a soft, sexy sound that has my cock twitching, before she adds, “I hadn’t noticed, but surely someone as confident—scratch that—as cocky as you doesn’t need a drink to take the edge off.”
“Sweetheart, I prefer my moves—even the ones that require teeth—to be calculated, which is why taking the edge off serves me and my clients well. So, what do you say? One more cup?”
“I don’t hold my tongue when I drink,” she warns.
“Hold your tongue with the rest of the world,” I say, “not with me.” I grab the pot of coffee from the counter behind me, fill both of our mugs halfway, and then top them off with Baileys. “Let’s go to the living room.”
She nods, and we both pick up our mugs and head in that direction, and yes, I watch the sway of her heart-shaped ass, because she has a fucking amazing ass in those jeans. It, like her breasts, would be even more amazing in my hands. “What’s that saying?” she asks as we sit down on the couch and angle toward each other. “Loose lips—something?”
“Sink ships,” I supply, and fuck, I need to get my head back in this conversation where it belongs. “And so does letting your attorney, and the man you’re spending every naked moment possible with, get sideswiped,” I add.
“Because being naked with you comes with rules?”
“Yes,” I say. “Like how I don’t want you to fuck anyone else but me, but that’s another conversation. For now, we stay on topic, which is your business and legal affairs. And I can’t protect you or help you get what you really want if you don’t speak frankly with me.”