Total pages in book: 156
Estimated words: 160192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 801(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 534(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 801(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 534(@300wpm)
“What? I am not running. I’m right here.”
“You said you wouldn’t sleep with her, right after she told you her limits. Limits she obviously has because of what my father did to her. So now she probably thinks you don’t want her. Maybe even that she disgusts you.”
Whoa.
Jared was good. How did he know all that?
“Angie? Is Jared right? Is that what you think?” North asked
“I . . . yes,” she whispered, trying to be brave.
“Look at me.”
She shook her head at North’s command. She couldn’t turn her head and look at him. She felt too ashamed and embarrassed. And she figured she’d probably burst into tears. Which would likely ruin the evening.
Not that it already wasn’t ruined.
“Look. At. Me.”
There was so much command in his voice that she found herself turning her head to study him.
He nodded as though he’d read something in her face. Then he grasped hold of her chin and leaned in close. “Do you know that I’ve only ever wanted to kiss one person in my life.”
“What?” she asked.
“Yeah. The man holding you right now. He’s the only man I’ve ever wanted to kiss. The only person I’ve ever trusted not to harm me. He’s going to take good care of you.”
“I know he will,” she said.
“Better care than I ever could.”
Oh.
Did he think he might scare her?
“I’m not scared of you.”
He tilted his head to the side, studying her like she was a bug under a microscope. But she didn’t take offense. She let him look at her while she wore her certainty on her face. It seemed that these two guys were experts at hiding their feelings. Especially North. She figured that what they all needed was some honesty.
“You’re not scared of me?” North asked.
“No.” She made certain that she had no doubt in her voice. Because he would pick up on any small nuance.
There seemed to be very little that North didn’t notice.
“You should be. You don’t know the things that I’m capable of. The things that I’ve done.”
“Will you hurt me, North? More than what I ask for, than I can handle?”
He sucked in a breath as though he hadn’t expected her to come straight out and ask him that.
“No.”
“I knew you wouldn’t. Because even though I might not know everything about you, I do see you, North. And you have a lot of good things about you even if you don’t see them. You’re loyal and smart and strong.”
“I’ve done bad things.”
“Haven’t we all?” Jared said.
“Things even you don’t know about,” North told Jared.
Oh. She could tell Jared didn’t like that.
“Right, but are you going to do bad things to me?” she asked quietly.
“I already have. I kidnapped you.”
And that was bad. There was no other way to put it and if she sugar-coated what he’d done, well, he’d see through it. And he might try it again. With someone else.
“And you won’t be doing that again, will you?” she said.
“Well, not to you. But I can’t say that I won’t kidnap anyone else.”
“You can only kidnap bad people,” she declared.
North stared at her for a long moment. “Are you giving me orders?”
She raised her chin into the air even though she was nervous as heck. “Yes.”
Angie noticed how tense Jared had grown.
“All right. I will only kidnap bad people from now on.”
“Shit,” Jared muttered quietly enough that she knew North wouldn’t have heard him speak. “Never thought I’d see the day he’d take someone’s orders.”
“He takes yours,” she whispered back.
“When it suits him.”
Well, that was probably how it would be with her too. But she’d take that for now.
North walked over to them, grasping hold of her chin with cool, light fingers. She stared into his dark gaze.
“Know this, though. You can ask anything of me, but I won’t always give it to you.”
Right. Okay.
“And you will follow my orders.”
“Your orders?” Jared asked him.
“Yes, you’re at the top, then me, then it’s our girl.”
Our girl?
He’d really just said that, right?
Holy crap.
Her heart was racing so hard that she might be ill.
But wait . . .
“How did I get on the bottom?” she asked.
The corner of North’s lip twitched. Involuntary? Or was that as good as a smirk from him?
“You’ve always been the bottom.”
She wasn’t sure she liked that.
“But that doesn’t mean you come last,” Jared explained. “All that means is that we’re your Tops. I’m your Daddy and your Dom.”
“I need Jared to Top me,” North explained. “I need those . . . limits and consequences. But not with you. With you, my Angel, I’m going to be the boss.”
Sheesh.
And she was no angel.
“So what you are saying is that you both get to tell me what to do?”
“Yes,” they said together.
“And I have to do it?” she asked.
“Unless you want to be punished,” Jared said as he carried her out of the kitchen and along the hallway.