Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 74875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
She checked everything out, including Tate’s bread, and said the total. Wincing at spending a hundred and twenty bucks on lubrication, I pulled out my card to pay when a crisp one hundred dollar bill, and a slightly folded twenty came over my head.
Lark took the money, put it into the cash register, and handed me my bags.
Tate took those, too.
I waved at Don, flipped Maria off, and walked out with Tate two steps in front of me.
I watched as his back muscles bunched as he transferred the bags to one hand and held out his hand for me to take.
I did, and looked up at him.
“You’re sure you’re not mad?” I whispered uncertainly.
“No, not mad.”
He sounded mad.
I looked up at his jaw, studied his beard as well as the glasses that had magically appeared out of what had to be his pocket.
He was dressed for work in a black ‘Hail Auto Recovery’ t-shirt, stained dark washed blue jeans, and his normal dirty work boots that still had traces of mud on the tread.
His jaw was set, and he was staring straight ahead at his truck.
I was parked right next to it, at the very back of the lot.
The place that we were at meant that no one was around us, and the brick wall at the back of the lot trying to pretty the place up meant we had nobody that could see us when he rounded the corner of his truck.
The moment that we were out of the view of the grocery store, he dropped the bags on the ground, and suddenly I was shoved up against the back retaining wall with two hundred and fifty pounds of man blanketing me.
Then his mouth was on mine, and his hand was in my pants.
I was so surprised by it all that I didn’t fight him at all. They were down around my ankles before I could even so much as protest.
Chapter 22
The question isn’t ‘who is going to let me?’ It’s ‘who is going to stop me?’
-Tate to Hennessy
Tate
“What are you...mmmmmm.”
Hennessy’s surprise was cut off the moment my mouth met hers. One second she was following behind my hasty steps, and the next she had her back against the wall with me pinning her in place.
“Tate,” she breathed when I let her up for air.
“I love you.”
Her eyes went wide at my declaration.
“You…what?”
She sounded so cute and confused that I only smiled at her, waiting for what I said to penetrate that hard outer shell that she protected so fiercely.
“You heard me,” I said.
“You can’t love me!” she cried out, pushing away from me.
I didn’t budge, though. Instead I held steady, keeping her pinned to the wall with my hips and nothing else.
“I can love you if I want to love you,” I informed her drolly. “You can’t make me not love you.”
“You can’t love me!” she repeated again, poking me in the chest.
I grinned at her. “That right?”
She nodded, looking fierce.
“Why?”
She opened her mouth to reply with something haughty, I was sure, but stopped and tilted her head to the side.
“I’m not a nice person when I wake up,” she settled on.
I grunted. “What does that have to do with me loving you?”
I was genuinely curious.
“You’ve never even slept in the same bed with me for more than a couple of hours!” she said. “What if I have a weird habit of collecting my toenails, or not brushing my teeth in the morning?”
If I laughed right now, she’d be offended, that I knew for certain.
But damn, was she fucking cute.
“Okay,” I paused for effect. “Do you collect your toenails?”
She shook her head.
“Do you brush your teeth twice a day like a good little girl?”
She pursed her lips. “Yeah, what’s it to you?”
I threw my head back and laughed. The sound was loud around us, and I knew that if we were closer to the front of the store, they would’ve heard it inside with how loud it was.
However, she’d parked at the back of the lot.
When I’d seen her car, so had I.
Though, I’d gone into the store only because I’d seen her in there. Since I’d needed bread anyway, I’d went ahead and collected it.
Arriving in time to hear Hennessy tear into the rude cow who never let an opportunity pass by without saying something ugly to me, I’d heard everything.
Now, I was about two seconds away from ripping her pants off—yoga pants that were fucking amazing, by the way—and turning her around so I could shove my cock inside of her.
Yet, I knew that I couldn’t do that. Not here.
Yet, when she said what she said next, I lost all desire to keep myself in check.
“I love you, too,” she said. “It made me so angry today when Maria said those hurtful things.” She paused. “I’ve always hated her, though.”