Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 26224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 131(@200wpm)___ 105(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 131(@200wpm)___ 105(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
“No,” I fire back.
“I don’t like gifts.”
“Well, I don’t like your attitude!”
He slows to a stop in the kitchen, looking incredulous. “You don’t like my…”
“Att-i-tude,” I sound out. “The proper thing to do when someone brings you a pie is to say thank you and offer them a slice. Not make them feel like a gigantic dumbass.”
He processes that. “Are you hungry or something?”
“I wouldn’t eat a slice of that pie now if I was starving to death.”
“Stubborn.”
“You don’t know the half.”
Shaking his head at me, he puts the pie in the refrigerator—rather carefully, in fact. When he turns back around, he points at me. “Get in the bedroom and strip.”
I don’t move.
In fact, I stomp my foot, I’m so irritated.
Knox raises a single eyebrow.
I came here to do exactly what he told me. And the second your chores are done tomorrow, you better be on my doorstep ready to bite your lip and take cock. Now that my pie has been rejected in such an unnecessarily rude manner, however, I am physically incapable of following his order.
“Maybe I should come back tomorrow when I’ve had a chance to calm down. If you come near me right now, I’ll probably just bite you.”
He wasn’t expecting that. “This is all over a pie?”
“No, it’s the way you made me feel stupid over bringing the pie!”
“Who brings a pie to the man they’re fucking to pay off a debt?”
“I do!”
“Well don’t.”
“I’ll never give you another gift as long as I live.” I pick up one of my boots and hurl it at his head. He ducks just in time to avoid it, my boot smashing off the kitchen cabinet, instead. “I’m leaving.”
“The hell you are,” he growls. “Billie.”
I’m already hightailing it to the door. Barefoot. No hat. Knowing my temper, I’m probably going to kick out the taillight of his truck on the way down the driveway, too. I’ve only managed to get the front door open an inch when Knox’s hand appears over my shoulder, slamming it shut. I’m spun around and shoved up against the door, his fingers jerking my chin up, that hard body crowding in on mine.
“You came to me to make this deal,” Knox grinds out. “We fuck. Your parents get to keep their ranch. There was no fine print about me being nice.”
“What’s wrong with being nice?”
A flicker of vulnerability moves across his features, gone as quickly as it appeared. “That’s when most people start taking advantage.”
“I’m not most people.”
“No shit,” he barks, hoarse. Closing his eyes. Inhaling. Exhaling. Trying to center himself? “It’s not about the pie. It’s about you trying to get under my fucking skin, girl.”
Indignation rocks me. “I’m not trying to do any such thing!”
“You’re doing it, regardless,” he rasps, his forehead falling to mine, rolling roughly side to side, while his fingers find the zipper of my jeans. “You can’t help it.”
I bat his hands away, fighting to get free of my imprisonment between his body and the door, but I’m trapped. In more ways than one. I don’t have enough strength to struggle free…and I don’t have enough strength to deny that with his mouth so close to mine, the taste of his minty breath on my tongue, I’m getting that melting sensation in my tummy.
Knox unfastens the button of my jeans and yanks the zipper down.
Oh, hell no.
I renew my struggle, ready to claw his eyeballs out. Or…something. My sudden surge of energy must go somewhere. I’m a shaken bottle of Coke ready to explode. And that explosion is channeled into an angry kiss when he stamps his mouth down over mine. Taking a long hard draw of my lips, before forcing them wide for his tongue. His texture. The flood of his hunger…he feeds it into my mouth with longing strokes. Winding our tongues while his fingers shove down the front of my panties, taking tight hold of my sex.
My moan breaks the kiss.
Oh, my word.
To have this man’s much older hand gripping me there and kneading…
It should feel wrong.
I’m a sacrifice. Do sacrifices enjoy themselves? Should I like how he slides his middle fingers along the closed seam of my flesh with such ownership? Such familiarity?
Aren’t I supposed to be mad at him? When did I stop?
“You’re thinking too hard, little girl,” he whispers, taking my mouth in a rough, thorough kiss that is sure to leave my lips swollen. “I’m a mean son of a bitch. I know it.” He parts my flesh with a deep rub, his fingers encountering that wetness I’ve been fretting about, a tingle spreading in my stomach, then lower, lower, and I see flashes of light on the backs of my eyelids. “But mean or not, don’t I pet you nice?”
Air leaves my mouth in a burst. “Is…is it…”
He mashes his mouth against mine, not kissing me, just…reveling. “What?”