Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 164838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
“W-What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, I respect your decision not to sleep with me. And I’ll always be grateful that you broke my self-imposed barrier over being able to climax. But…just like you have to help others, I have to repay that help. Call it good manners or the polite thing to do, but I need to thank you, X, and so…you have two choices.”
He sucked in a heavy breath. “What two choices?”
“I took advantage of you the other night. It was manipulative and I still feel bad. So…you either eat the cake, or I give you an orgasm. How you accept my gratitude is entirely your choice. But you’re not leaving until this debt is settled.”
* 34 *
Zander
Self-Control Only Goes So Far
I WASN’T JUST GOING TO HELL, I was there.
I had literally everything I had ever wanted. I had the woman I’d spied on for years offering to make me come. I had the girl I’d crushed on since I was a boy wanting to know me.
And the only reason she was in my arms was because everything I’d told her was a lie.
A lie just waiting to blow up my life and leave me in pieces.
God, no one had ever asked to take care of me.
Not my family.
Not my sisters.
I was the one who called to check in on them.
I was the one who booked the funerals for our grandparents and handled the estate. I was the one my grandparents made the executor because, all my life, I’d gone out of my way to prove I was dependable, trustworthy, and could fix any problem—medically or otherwise, even though I was a fraud some days.
Like I told Lori, I’d been born wanting to save lives, but it’d taken losing my dad to turn that calling into OCD. I still felt guilty, even now. Still believed if I’d been older or read more textbooks or had a little more time, I could’ve become the doctor he needed to survive.
When he died, I promised myself I would never let anyone down again.
I’d gotten so good at keeping that promise that no one asked about the toll it took on me.
Fuck, I hadn’t even noticed.
Until her.
Until I’d sat in my empty house tonight, staring at my single plate, sinking beneath a crush of loneliness that came with decades of denial. I’d given Sailor a ride today because she needed it, and I’d let her go because she couldn’t be around me without bad memories, but those couple of hours we’d spent together without a mask, without my lies, had successfully cracked my façade and left me with a yearning that felt like a goddamn dagger in my gut.
And now this motherfucking alter ego had everything I ever wanted.
A skull-masked wannabe Superman got the girl, which was exactly how all those comic books went. Clark Kent never got the girl. He got to stand by while Lois Lane threw herself at the version of himself he wished he could be.
Hot anger roared through me.
Frustration that I hadn’t had the balls to reach out and take what I wanted when I had the chance. If I’d asked Sailor out the day she’d moved in with Melody, perhaps she would never have been hurt by Milton, and I would’ve been able to let down my guard to let her care for me.
She wouldn’t have turned down my invitation tonight or be so blatantly brave toward a stranger in a mask. Her forwardness toward X and her fear of me as Zander absolutely butchered me. Would she be this willing with other men when X vanished from her life? Fuck, the thought of her being this free with someone else didn’t just butcher me, it slaughtered me.
I-I don’t know how much longer I can keep up this act.
“Your thoughts are very loud, but you’re not speaking,” Sailor murmured, her wrists so delicate and fragile in my hold.
I flexed my fingers, testing her. She didn’t look afraid. She didn’t fight to escape or show any signs that me holding her sent her into dark places. If Zander held her like this, she’d be screaming, and fuck that hurt.
Christ, it broke me.
Because I wanted so, so badly to accept what she was offering. I wanted to be a selfish asshole. I wanted to demand her to get on her knees and make me come.
But I couldn’t.
Because I wasn’t that guy.
I’d never been that guy.
But tonight, I desperately wanted to be different.
But if I was, I’d ruin any chance of winning her when the mask came off and my glasses went back on and fuck!
In a burst of rage, I swooped to my feet and swung her off me.
Keeping her wrists trapped, I bent with her, depositing her on the couch with her hands bound by mine. She sucked in a breath as my face loomed over hers. So close. Too close. It would be so easy to kiss her. Just a drop of my chin and—