Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73278 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73278 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
There was a gym down the street that I went to. I didn’t like sharing my space with the public, which was why I had a private gym in my homes. But for now, it would do. Vanessa was obsessed with my body, aroused by the way I’d thickened over the last three months, so I increased the weight to keep my size. I didn’t need it for a battle. I just liked making her forget she ever bothered with that boy painter.
I returned home, showered, and then sat at the dining table with my laptop. It was another sunny day in Florence, and the sunlight filtered through the apartment. When I scouted this piece of real estate, I thought it would be the perfect place for her. I bought it under the assumption she would never share her space with anyone, not even me. So it was smaller than I preferred.
I finally finished the mission statement Max sent over to me. I completed all the case studies I needed against my hit. I’d be heading to Egypt in a few days, something I hadn’t mentioned to Vanessa. She knew it was coming. She always knew.
Vanessa woke up thirty minutes later, parading around in my t-shirt. She looked sexy in the lingerie I picked out for her, but never quite as sexy as she did in my clothes. She leaned over me with her arms wrapped around my shoulders and kissed me on the neck, the same way she always greeted me in the morning. “Good morning.”
“Morning, baby.” When she walked away, I smacked her ass—like clockwork.
She helped herself in the kitchen, making a bowl of cereal. Her long, tanned legs poked out from underneath my shirt, two legs that looked like pure sex. She ran her fingers through her hair before she carried her bowl to the table.
My eyes were glued to her, focused on the one woman who captured my complete focus the second I met her. She was such a woman that she made me, a man incapable of love, fall so deeply that I sacrificed everything to keep her. I gave up promiscuity for monogamy. I gave up death for life. I’d been a man a long time, but I’d never met a woman who could match me, a lady so strong and fierce that she reminded me of myself. Once she put that bullet in my shoulder, I was gone. I watched her shoot me with determination, and the second she pulled that trigger, I was harder than I’d ever been my entire life.
Every day I couldn’t stop staring at her like this, like it was the first time I’d laid eyes on her. She was used to my constant looks that bordered hostility, but she had no idea what I was thinking. She had no idea that I was thinking about how much I loved her every single second of those stares. Sometimes, I wanted to fuck her. Sometimes, I wanted to grab her by the neck and pin her into the mattress, just to remind her that she belonged to me—even though I would never let her forget. My love was sometimes so possessive, it was violent. My love was so physical that I wanted to fuck her ass and mouth just as much as her pussy. My love so intense that it made everyone in our vicinity uncomfortable. But she was such an extraordinary woman that she could handle it.
Since the moment I met her, I could honestly say no other woman ever caught my attention the way she did. I didn’t fantasize about other women. I didn’t miss the threesomes, the handcuffs, and the strippers.
Never once did I doubt what we had.
That it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.
She ate her cereal while these thoughts passed through my head, the corner of her mouth raised in a smile. She could feel my stare, and even though she should be used to it by now, it still distracted her. She turned her face toward me. “What?”
I didn’t waste my time telling her every thought I had. I didn’t describe the way she made me feel, the way she turned me into a stronger and weaker man at the same time. All those words seemed like too much work, the feelings impossible to translate into a spoken language. So I held her gaze, my eyes conveying everything I didn’t have to say. “You already know.”
Vanessa was downstairs at the gallery for the day, so I stayed in the apartment and watched TV on the couch. It was tempting to go downstairs and watch her work, but I knew my hostile presence made people uncomfortable. She needed more customers, not fewer, so I stayed out of her business.
She came upstairs in the middle of the afternoon and stood in front of me, blocking the TV with her petite frame. Her eyes locked on to mine before she undid her jean shorts and pushed them down her long legs. Her panties came next, landing on top of her jeans on the rug.