Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 43367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 217(@200wpm)___ 173(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 217(@200wpm)___ 173(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
I start walking backward, tugging him with me, encouraged when he follows me, aware of his lethal grace even now, in this small movement. It’s an energy he possesses that on someone else I’d call absolute masculine confidence, but on Creed, it’s next level. It’s almost a hum of energy.
We reach the door and I step inside, but just when I believe he will join me, he extracts his hand from mine. He plants one palm on the glass door, the other on the wall of the house. “What the hell am I doing?” he murmurs to himself, and then to me. “No, Addie. This is a mistake.”
I’m excruciatingly aware in this moment that he has not touched me once of his own accord, and I fear I’ve misread this visit in all kinds of ways. And how inappropriate am I, in my sheer gown, touching him, pulling him inside, when maybe he just wants to see someone who can help him, and not by way of getting naked with him?
My arms fold in front of my chest. “Okay.”
“Don’t say that like I just wounded you. God, woman. I’m here. You know I want to be here. You’re standing there in a damn near see-through gown. How can I not want to come inside with you?”
“Which was inappropriate of me. I should have gotten a robe. And I’m sorry. We can talk. I’ll put a robe on, and we can sit outside, and I—”
“I don’t want you to put on a fucking robe. I want you to take off the gown, but damn it, I know you know about those women who—”
“None of them were with soldiers with the X2 gene, which may or may not mean anything, but—”
“You know I’m positive.” His statement is flat, hard.
“Of course, I know.”
“Then why are you standing here with me, inviting me inside?”
“We don’t know what it means.”
“I do. I do, Addie.”
I suck in a breath at what is obviously an admission of something he doesn’t want known. And that’s a dangerous thing for him because of who I am. He must feel his need to trust me defies survival and logic. “You can trust me. And I’m not afraid of you, Creed Monroe. I’ll say that a hundred times if it will make you believe me. Please come inside.”
“You know what’s going to happen when I come inside, don’t you?”
“I have an idea.”
“Do you, Addie?” he challenges. “Because while I might talk to you, that’s not what I need right now. I can’t drink myself into oblivion. I can’t escape me and all that I am unless it’s buried in you. So to be clear, I want to fuck you. I need to fuck you, every which way you’ll let me fuck you, and for reasons I can’t even explain, it can’t be anyone else. But afterward, we both have to live with the consequences. And I’m pretty much at the fuck the consequences place in my life, so fuck the consequences. But you’re another story. So I ask you now, do you want me to come in?”
Chapter Thirteen
My cheeks flush with his bold words, but I also feel the challenge in their depths as certainly as I do the slick heat between my thighs. And that challenge is clear. Can I really handle him?
Uncharacteristically bold, I dare to lower my arms, allowing him a view of my body beneath the thin gown, my puckered nipples. But I also step closer to him, so close I breathe in his earthy, masculine scent.
I tilt my chin up to meet his stare and speak every truth I can summon. “If you’re trying to shock me, Creed, it didn’t work. If you’re trying to prove I’m a scared little scientist, it didn’t work. I’m not afraid of you. Maybe I should be, I don’t know. I can’t explain anything between us, but what I know is that you needed to come here to me tonight and I needed you to come, and I’ve needed that every day since you left.” I throw my hands out to my side. “You don’t want to talk. I don’t either, but I can’t seem to stop, so either go or come inside and give me something else to do.” I back up into my bedroom, giving him space, wanting none of it, challenging him as he has me.
For seconds that feel like an eternity he just stares at me, and I’m losing my mind, but then his gaze rakes over me, hot, intimate, dirty, and it’s a good dirty. But still, he hasn’t touched me, he hasn’t come inside, and I am hanging on a thread, expecting him to disappear at any moment.
“Creed,” I whisper, a plea in his name.
He answers by stepping into the room, shutting the door, and then it happens. He’s finally touching me, one hand possessively at my waist, another on the back of my head. “I’m obsessed with you, Addie, and that is not going to end well for either of us.”