Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Does setting up a weekly schedule feel seedy like she’s a mistress meeting me at a cheap motel by appointment? A little bit, not gonna lie. But I rationalize it was her idea and that’s also the furthest thing from how I think of her. She’s proof that I’m alive, a painful awakening after probably a decade or so of being all business and shutting down anything inefficient like loneliness or longing. I wouldn’t say she’s a breath of fresh air in my stale life. That’s a cliché and too tame for what she is. Katie’s an earthquake and a volcano, with maybe a little bit of hurricane thrown in.
As for her, I know damn well she’ll be fine without me. She’ll go back to LA and find a man inside of a week. A better man than me. One who doesn’t carry concealed or spend seven figures every year on covering up shit that would result in about forty felony convictions for myself alone. Not to mention the guys who’d go down with me. She deserves a lot better than a career criminal practically old enough to be her dad.
Telling her how I feel is out of the question. Asking her to give up a life out in California to stay in Southie and tie herself to a garden variety crook is out of the question. And I can’t lie to her. Of all the shit I’ve done and all the illegal and unethical shit I’ll continue to do, lying to Mary Katharyn Donahue isn’t going to be one of my sins. Everybody draws a line somewhere, I guess. I’ll cheat and steal or pop some disloyal bastard in a back alley without even using a silencer. But I will never lie to Katie.
That leaves me with the one thing I can do. Show her what I won’t let myself put into words. Right here. Right now.
She hasn’t left. She’s put about six inches of distance between us on the couch, an overpriced rattan thing with big cushions that the decorator ordered. She put her shirt back on a minute ago which was punishment enough. Now she’s grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped it around herself like she wants to hide. Or maybe she’s cold. Either way I can take care of that in no time.
“Please,” I say.
I’ve never begged for anything. Not even for my own life when I was nineteen and on the wrong side of a rival family. But I’ll beg her for this. She makes me wait for it. I’m holding my breath and half convince myself that she’s gonna tell me to fuck off. Then she turns toward me and holds out her arms, still with the blanket around her so when I embrace her, she’s wrapping the blanket around me too.
I kiss her like I’ll die without her because that’s what it feels like. The immense relief I felt when she opened her arms, the sensation of everything shifting into place, a rightness and a loosening of some knot inside me when she’s back in my arms. I want to take it slow but I won’t be able to, not tonight. Not after the things she said to me. I want to devour her, make her so happy that she can’t remember why she ever looked at another man. I want to ruin her because she sure as fuck ruined me in an elevator weeks ago.
I do it again now, what I did then and brush the backs of my fingers down her neck from just below her ear all the way to her collarbone in one slow, featherlight stroke. I feel the rapid pulse against my fingers, see the heat in her eyes. She knows what I’m doing and my mouth hitches up on one side, smug as hell and for good reason. Loosely, tenderly, I wrap my hand around her throat and dip my head back down to rub my lips against hers. I kiss the corner of her mouth, “You like that,” I whisper. She doesn’t need to answer. It’s obvious.
I nip at her lips, give her little teasing kisses until she surges up toward me and swings her leg across my lap. Everything in my body tightens with her on top of me. I’m so hard that I know I’m straining my zipper. Her small, soft hands comb my hair back from my face and I shiver at her light touch that’s not enough but somehow too much for me to endure at the same time.
I grab her wrists and love the gasp I startle out of her. She stares down at me as I wrap an arm around her hips and pull her flush against my chest. I can’t break the eye contact, the intense, breathless quality that ratchets up my desire for her. The silence is heavy and I can almost taste the scent of her arousal between us. I’m raw with need for her, my cock jerking in the confines of my jeans. I want to rip off her clothes, just the necessary ones right now. She feels how taut and rigid I am, how desperate for her, and shows me mercy.