Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
It was almost obnoxious to be both breathtakingly handsome, fit, stylish, and immeasurably wealthy all at once.
That said, obnoxious was a trait that did seem to come to him naturally at times.
I'd followed him to a few establishments over the course of those first two nights of surveillance work.
He was always the one getting loud, starting trouble, urging others to get into some as well.
He was over-the-top, generous, and completely unconcerned with social mores or actual laws.
A part of me had worried that, even if I did catch his eye, that his attention span was too short to be able to run a long con on him.
Then there he was.
And then he was gone.
Leaving me hanging.
Me.
No one left me hanging.
No one.
That was not how it worked.
I hanged everyone else out to dry.
Not the other way around.
I threw back the rest of my drink, got off the stool, and made my way toward the door, heels tapping so hard against the floor in my agitation that I was surprised they didn't snap.
He thought he was playing me, I decided as I made my way into the elevator in my hotel. He thought that by schmoozing then rushing off, that he was going to have me salivating after him. He thought he had the upper hand.
Well.
He was just going to have to learn, wasn't he?
No one got the upper hand over me.
Certainly not in the game of cat and mouse that was intrigue and interest and sexual chemistry.
Oh, no.
I just had to ramp it up the next time I saw him. And I would see him again. No way was I going to turn down the life-changing kind of money that was being offered to me just because I was pissed off that this man-child thought he could out-intrigue me.
"I told you not to call me," I grumbled at my phone to Raven, knowing it was barely six in the morning back in Navesink Bank, that she was going out of her way to check in on me so early in the morning.
"You know I have to worry about you."
"There's nothing to worry about," I assured her.
"You are working an international job. There is plenty to worry about."
She'd broken me when I'd dropped off Wanda. Don't ask me how she managed it, but she'd gotten the truth about the trip out of me. Then she'd promptly started fretting about it.
"It's a very safe job," I assured her. "Really. The client is like a puppy dog. All tail-wagging and lapping tongue, no brain."
"How do you know about his lapping tongue?" she asked, tone teasing.
"Oh, ew. No. Gross."
"So he's ugly?"
"No. He's actually stunning. But that is beside the point."
I wasn't necessarily morally opposed to sleeping with a mark. In fact, there were not many things my moral code was against. But I didn't want it to go that way. It gave some of the power away. The women held all the power up to the moment that backs hit mattresses. After that, in many situations, she ended up on the losing side. It was bad business.
Sure, sometimes, there was some fumbling and making out. But I always saw it more as acting than anything else.
Certainly nothing went as far as oral sex.
And I planned to keep it that way.
Men were easier to lead around when they were thinking with their unsatisfied dicks. They were malleable as little boys. As eager to please as well.
You wanted him salivating, dying for one touch, one taste.
And then you wanted to keep denying him.
Until he was so overwhelmed with sex hormones that he was tricked into thinking he was madly in love.
Then, well, he would offer you absolutely anything in the world to get you.
Which was precisely when you ripped the floor out from underneath him.
It worked like a charm.
Every single time.
It would work on Fenway Arlington as well, once he knew that he wasn't in charge here. "I was just teasing. I'm half-delirious from lack of sleep. The kids all caught some sort of stomach bug. It's been... rough over here. But Roman and I seem to be immune, so I took the night shift, and he is going to take the day so I can sleep."
"You poor thing. I can't imagine."
I really couldn't, either.
I'd never been responsible for any living thing. My brother had once bought me an air plant as a skoolie-warming present when I finally moved in full-time. I killed it. An air plant. Something that practically lived on air alone and a couple spritzes of water every now and again.
I kept myself alive. Sometimes, barely. That was about as good as I could do.
Raven, and anyone who managed to keep children and loads of pets or even a whole bunch of finicky houseplants alive, amazed me.
"It's times like these that make us seriously think about Roman getting a little snip snip. But then they get well and do something really sweet, and your uterus does this little squeeze..."