Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 132834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
There were no words in my mind. I had no words.
Propping himself up on his elbows, he stared down at me, his mossy green eyes guarded. “Well, that was a long time coming,” he said, his words so cool they were a slap.
Something inside me jolted and shut off. He wasn’t wrong, but did he have to say it like that? He was still inside me.
Drawing on every bit of the ass kicker I knew I was, I gave him an equally cool look. As crisply as I could manage with my heart still thundering and my breath ragged, I said, “Just so you know, I still don’t like you.”
I didn’t expect his answering grin, the shields gone from his eyes, replaced with a spark of humor. “Fine with me, sweetheart.” He kissed me again, a short, hard, claiming kiss.
Stepping back, his body disengaging from mine, he was zipping his jeans and striding out the front door before I could free my arms from my tangled dress. I slid to my feet, wobbling as I got my balance and yanked at my dress until I brought it back into place.
I watched him cross the lawn to the Manor through the front windows, his stride determined and swift, with the tiniest hint of a bounce in his step. A thousand thoughts raced through my mind, but mostly, I was thinking, what had we just done? And when could we do it again?
Chapter Twenty
SAVANNAH
Hours later, the sun was dipping in the sky, casting shadows across the winding gravel path back to the Manor. I was in a rush, the path ahead seeming endless, the Manor further away instead of closer.
But no, it wasn’t. That was just me being an anxious jumble of nerves because I’d spent too long in the cottage trying to get my head together, avoiding the Manor and the kitchens. I’d hoped that if I could just straighten and organize the things I’d moved to the cottage, maybe somewhere in that process I could straighten and organize my wayward brain.
I had sex with Finn Sawyer.
Why?
What the fuck was I thinking?
It was the worst of all possible bad ideas. I mean, come on. I wasn’t a teenager anymore. We had way too much history, most of it awful. I was his boss, kind of. But he was my boss’s younger brother. Yikes. I couldn’t orchestrate a more complicated mess if I tried.
All that was piled on one side of the scale. On the oh, hell no, not doing that again side of the scale. And on the other side was the best sex I’d ever had. By a long shot.
I didn’t know sex like that existed. The idea of not doing that again was utterly insane. Because why? Why was I not doing that again?
Oh, yeah. All those very practical, sensible, logical reasons piled on the other side of the imaginary scale in my mind. I thought of my mother’s booty calls. Could I?
No. With someone, maybe. Not with Finn.
Sex with Finn was a disastrously awful idea.
End of story.
I straightened and I organized and I hung things up and didn’t leave the cottage until I was late for dinner. I still wasn’t any clearer on what I wanted or what I was going to do than I had been as I’d watched Finn stroll out the door.
And what if he, I don’t know, said something, or did something that gave us away? If my mother had any clue we’d had sex . . . I didn’t know if she’d be mad or happy, and I didn’t want to know.
Oh god, I did not want to know what my mother would think about me having sex with Finn Sawyer.
Okay. Have to keep moving. I picked up my pace, trying to take deep calming breaths at the same time. Note to self: Rushing and calming do not go together. I yanked open the side door and clattered down the steps, entering the kitchen with a flush on my face and my hair flying out of my braid every which way.
Great. Because if I wanted to have sex with Finn again—which I wasn’t going to, but if I did—I really didn’t want him to see me all sweating and red-faced.
And oh my god, why did I care what Finn Sawyer thought about how I looked? I wanted to get in my car and disappear for at least a week. A month. Until I could forget the feel of Finn’s hands on my hips as he—
No. I had dinner with my mother and two young children, and—oh, shit—also Finn Sawyer. I stood in the kitchen doorway, watching Finn move with smooth coordination between the oven and the counter where he was plating dinner. Kitty worked beside him, loading trays to go in the dumbwaiter.
My mother had Nicky and August at one of the prep sinks, washing their hands. Everyone looked up, gave me a quick glance, and went back to what they were doing. Everyone including Finn. Okay, if he could be grown up and professional, then goddammit, so could I. I was the epitome of grown-up and professional. It was going to take more than Finn Sawyer to shake me.