There's no malice in her eyes. She has no reason to lie to me. My grip on her arm is so tight that I can feel her flesh pressing between my fingers. It will probably leave a bruise. I had meant to bruise her when I grabbed her. Meant to mark her. It was both anger and domi...
Maybe hate is a strong word. He hasn't said anything to me since I walked through the door this morning though. All I've gotten from him is a few bitter glances. I wish he would just suck up his feelings, because we still have to work together on Lucian's interior design project...not that there'...
Internally, I groan at the thought of having to do anything else. Even getting up seems like a chore. If only we could just pass out here for the night though I'm sure I'd regret it in the morning if I woke up with stiff muscles. I close my eyes the rest of the way, pretending to be asleep. I fee...
She's a goddess in a house of blasphemers, a sheep in a den of wolves. I don't want to be one of those wolves, the first one to take her against her will. Hell, I don't want anyone to take her like that, but I'm powerless against the ways of the world, and this was her choice to begin with. All I...
I wake to a bright light, causing my eyes to flutter open and my mind to fight for clarity. It takes a moment to realize where I am, to recognize the face smiling down at me. Lucian sets a breakfast tray over my lap before I even have time to fully wake up. On top of it is a plate with scrambled ...
Such painful words. No rejection could be more blatant than that. I'm done trying with him. The truth of the matter is that Dmitri Strife doesn't want me. Maybe his body does, but he—as a man—does not. This is where I feel unwanted and unattractive ...
Derrick's words are full of mockery, as if he expects me to have slipped up, which I did. I push my keyboard aside and rest my head in my arms, groaning. I can't even look at him, I'm so guilty. “Well?” He nudges my back. “Can we not talk about this?” I lift my head up and rub my face with my han...
Of this. And that's okay because I'm scared too. I'm desperately afraid. Afraid of falling for the wrong man. Afraid of being hurt again. He has hurt me so much. He's capable of hurting me a lot more. I know this, but after hearing about his wife and child and all of those beautiful confessions, ...
It's taken everything in me to be patient enough for Janice to put her purse down. Weariness is etched across her face from a long night of work. She doesn't look like she wants to talk, but she's the only one who I think might understand the way that Lucian feels. I should be content with the fa...
Almost too late to go to an ice cream parlor. Everything will be closing within the next thirty minutes, and I don't want to feel rushed, so I decide that we should stop at a gas station to pick up some ice cream and take it home instead. “We could have gotten ice cream at...
I was sure it would go without a hitch, that things would progress at the same pace that they had been. There are only two more stores to visit. Even if we only visit one a week, that means I'll have my answer in two weeks. Work is excruciatingly boring, and the tension hasn't let up between Derr...
My name is a choked sob on Janice's lips. I want to be deaf to it. I pretend to be deaf to it, opening my closet to find my suitcase. I can't stay in this apartment any longer, not knowing what I know now. Being ignorant was blissful, though there was always the slightest ...
Ann clutches onto my hand so hard that it hurts. The tears brimming in her eyes have my heart about to break. I can't believe that bastard would upset his own mother to this degree. Some son he is. “Hey.” I kneel down in front of her. “Don't worry about it. I'm not going t...
I've been leaning against the back of the sofa, staring at the door for the past twenty minutes. Not so much staring at it as looking through it, not seeing it, my mind somewhere else. Mistake, it keeps saying. I should not have given him this chance. Nothing good will come from it. I wish that J...
Though if there was, he would be the one taking it. Instead, I wake up the next morning to the smell of booze and sweat. It's so hot that we don't even have a sheet covering us, but that's entirely my fault. Electricity doesn't come for free, so we rode the night out naked and miserable, barely e...
It's impossible to keep the disdain from my voice. Hopefully, the guy who mans the telephone will just think that I'm having a bad day. I am having a bad day. A bad day. A bad week. A bad month. A bad everything. Ever since I met Lucian Reddick. “Sir Lucian,” the man parrots absentmindedly as if ...
I stare at the bold letters on Janice's ass, trying to bite back my anger. I'm not sure why I'm so irrationally mad. Janice wouldn't care that her Dom plastered such a derogatory word across her backside. Heck, it would probably just turn her on more. It infuriates me though. Even seeing the word...
Investing is serious business, and one wrong transaction can rob me of millions of dollars in the blink of an eye. The company seems promising. They've produced a lot of good work throughout the three years that they've been around. I've heard pipe dream promises before though. Cures for cancer a...