Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 141676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 567(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 567(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Shit.
The roughness in her voice, the way she almost breaks when she says it, cuts me open.
I make a mental note to blacklist this company from ever working with Higher Ends. I don’t care what kind of bullshit excuse my brothers need.
“Listen,” I say, taking her hands and pulling them to my lips. Fuck the lobster—it can wait. I need her to know what I see right now. “You are successful. You’re a brilliant young woman with an established business. You’re running in the red. You manage with a skeleton crew and your own wits.”
“Thanks, I think.” She smiles weakly. “You just seem so capable, and I—”
“I’m thirty-two, sweetheart. I’ve been doing this shit for years with two and a half times the brainpower because Patton’s a half-wit.” She giggles at that, never mind the fact that I’m not joking. I squeeze her hands, wishing like hell I could find the right words to tell her what she means to me. “Last I checked, the Sugar Bowl isn’t a flaming wreck.”
“Not yet, anyway. Mostly thanks to you.”
“Thanks to you.” I stand up, circle the table, and pull her into my arms. “Do you really think I could convince Forrest Haute by myself? Without you, my name would be fucking mud in this industry.”
With a heavy sigh, she rests her head against my shoulder and spears my heart.
“I don’t know,” she whispers. “You might have been able to do it with another bakery.”
“Like hell. I’ve never heard Haute rave about anything like he does your stuff. Did I tell you he thanked me for twenty minutes for sending a box down to him in Florida?” I tighten my arms around her. “You’re the reason this whole thing is possible.”
She finally looks up with a warmth that tells me my words are getting through.
“Yeah? Well, thanks, Dex.”
I hold her for a few heartbeats longer, sorting through everything she said, letting my body settle down without a prayer of really settling.
I can’t decide if I want to kiss her or run downstairs and beat my arms numb, but right now I need control.
“Is this why you fought my proposal so hard?” I ease her back, tipping her chin up so she meets my gaze.
Those jade-green eyes sparkle like a summer day, but her eyelashes are wet. The rage in the pit of my stomach flares, but I don’t let her see any of it on my face.
I don’t let her see anything except how precious she is.
“Part of the reason, when you first asked,” she says softly. “I just… I didn’t want to be anybody’s backup or a big disappointment to Nana. Not until I had time to process.”
“Fucking hell, Junie. Is that what you think you are?” I smooth my thumb across her cheeks, erasing the tears and hating every poison memory that’s made her feel less worthy and beautiful than she truly is. “I’m only going to say this once—you are not a fucking backup.”
Her nostrils flare.
She presses her lips together, shaking her head like she doesn’t have any words left.
Hell, neither do I, not when I have a broken angel in my arms and I’ll spend all night holding her wings together if I need to.
So I let temptation lead the way.
I push my forehead to hers, inhale her, and kiss her like a man possessed.
I mean to be gentle—to tell her everything I can’t say with words—until I can’t.
The second she wraps her arms around my neck and opens my mouth, my body reacts with volcanic need. Every slip of her tongue, the tiny noise she makes when I pull her closer, the way she digs her fingers in my hair—everything she does sets me on fire.
Juniper Winkley needs to know what she does to me.
How special she is.
For better or worse, she needs to wrap her pretty little head around how damnably hard it’s going to be to ever let her go.
17
SWEET COMPULSION (JUNIPER)
I desperately need my temperature checked.
I can’t believe I just poured my heart out to Dexter Rory.
Dexter, who, instead of dismissing my dumb insecurities, listened and reassured me like a normal human being.
Dexter, who’s now carrying me upstairs like I’m lighter than a feather.
But we don’t wind up in his bed. We walk through the large, soothing bedroom suite with its modern Scandinavian wood and neutral colors. He’s taking me to the balcony.
My heart leaps.
The air’s still balmy as he sets me down and I grasp the railings, gripping them almost out of habit.
From up here, the entire city feels like it’s spread out before me. A glowing evening buffet of multiplying lights and the stark red ribbon of sunset.
Dexter glows in the same brilliant shadows, his blue eyes rivaling the dusky sky when he looks at me dead-on.
“You’re so beautiful it hurts,” he says. The simple harshness of those words makes my heart ache. “Your ex is a brainless fucking worm for not realizing it.”