Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 111685 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111685 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
“She’s an alcoholic, Stone.”
“Shut up.”
“She hates her life.”
“I said to shut up.”
“She hates your father.”
He started to look away.
I grabbed his face, holding him in place, and I leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to the side of his mouth. “Do you wonder if she stays with him for his money? Or is it really just you? If he didn’t have the money, if you didn’t have the notoriety, would she leave?”
He was rigid and still and I could feel how his body was turning against me.
I kissed the other side of his mouth. “Do you wonder if she would’ve left you with him long ago if you guys were poor? If your family would’ve changed places with mine?”
“Jesus,” he grated out, starting to pull away.
I was on him, both my hands locked behind his neck. He couldn’t get away from me. I was a leech on him now. I was sucking the will from him and I was filling it with something toxic instead. I was infusing him with poison.
“What about your father?”
“Stop.” He reached behind him, took my hands, and thrust me off of him.
I hit the wall, and I felt alive. Maybe for the first time since being in his arms. I laughed, seeing the torment clouding his face.
I leaned forward, dropping my voice to a whisper. “Be honest. You got the call from Colby and what? You couldn’t leave because of your parents? I’m right, aren’t I? You were with them, catering to them, giving them the royal treatment, and you knew if you left to come for me, your mother would have questions. She’d want to know the answers, and I bet you anything that you couldn’t come to me at the stadium because Mother Dearest would’ve had a fit. And I bet you even more that she hates that you made your father pay for my schooling, that you made them both pay for my parents’ funeral costs, that they had to pay for all of that because your mother is one twisted sick piece of fu—”
His hand wrapped around the back of my head again, this time knotting in my hair, and he jerked me to him. “I would be very careful what you’re about to say to me. Very. careful.”
Good.
He was starting to hate me.
One more shove.
It was a boulder balancing on the edge of a cliff and I was going to knock that fucker completely off.
“Did you know that your dad gave me a ride home one night my senior year?”
I was lying. I didn’t care.
His body never loosened. It remained rigid and unmoving, but I felt his hand flex on the back of my head. His eyes were growing half wild, dilating, a panicked look edging in there. I knew it because I was putting it there, because it’s the same emotion I hadn’t stopped feeling since she got cancer.
“I was working at your parents’ supermarket and my car wouldn’t start. It was the beginning of November, so temps were bad. Mom was already in Hospice by then. We knew the house was going on the market for a short sale, so I didn’t want to bother my dad. But your dad saw me walking home and he pulled over.”
“Dusty,” he clipped out. He started shaking his head. “If this is a lie, I swear to God…”
I kept on as if he hadn’t said a word, “He offered me a ride. Insisted on it when I refused.” I pushed against him, my body rubbing over his and I felt him hardening. “Said he’d drive behind me the whole way if I didn’t get in the car, so I got in.”
His hand was holding the back of my head captive, but I had everything else in check. Drawing a hand down between us, I grazed over his cock, feeling it jerk against his jeans at my touch.
“You know when you meet someone and they want you? But you don’t want them? It’s plain as day to you. They might not say anything to you, but it’s in their eyes. They track you everywhere you go.”
A low curse word slipped from him.
I turned my hand around, fully cupping him and he grunted, but he didn’t move away. He didn’t release his hold on me either.
I leaned into his left ear and murmured, “That’s how your father was the whole ride home. He could barely watch the street. He kept looking at me, his eyes running the length of my body. He liked what he saw. He wanted what he saw. He wanted more than what he saw. He wanted to touch me. He wanted to taste me. I can’t help but wonder now, like father, like son?”
He yanked on my hair, whipping my head back. “You are such a bitch.”
I started to smile, my hand still cupping him, and I ran my thumb down the side of him, but his mouth covered mine. I surged up, my hand going to his jeans and I started to draw his zipper down. His tongue thrust in the same time my hand snaked inside his jeans, finding the opening of his boxers and I had him in the palm of my hand.