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She picks up the folder, but doesn’t open it. “So my brothers-in-law get a real meeting, in an office, about the future of my ranch. And I get a meeting in your bed with my body as collateral? Seems fair.”
I gaze down at her, admiring her spirit. “It’s not fair. I never said it was. And you know why it’s different between us.”
Her breath hitches, her lips part.
“Why is it different?” she says. “Sir.”
I sink to my knees by the bed, just a little shorter than she is, and look up into her face. “Because I want you,” I say quietly. “Because you’re in danger and you need my protection.”
“If you were a good man you’d offer me protection for free,” she whispers.
“Who told you I was good?”
She swallows hard enough I see her throat bob and her knuckles go white on the folder. My eyes fall to the rise of her thighs beneath her thin dress. I’m so close…all it would take for me to see what I’ve fantasized about for months is for me to spread those thighs and pull her panties to the side.
Is she wearing any? She doesn’t seem like she’d go without, not in a dress that short.
I’m hard and I stand, not caring if she sees what she does to me. “I’ll let you sleep and mull this over,” I say. “I’ll take the guest room tonight.”
She bites her lip, like she’s considering something. “You can…sleep here.”
I lift my brow, looking down at her, trying to read her face. “You trying to fuck me, Miss Garrison?”
She flushes dark pink and shakes her head hard. “No, but it’s a big bed. We won’t touch.”
I laugh once. “I’ll take the guest room.”
Her eyes follow me as I gather up my sweatpants and head for the door. I have a lot of patience and self control, but not enough to spend the night beside her and not break. She makes a little noise in her throat and I pause in the doorway. She’s curled up against my pillows, arms wrapped around her bare thighs.
Eyes big, like she doesn’t want me to go.
“You need anything, I’ll be in the room at the far end of the hall,” I say.
She nods.
“Um…thank you,” she whispers.
“I haven’t done anything for you yet,” I say. “But give me what I want and you’ll have plenty to thank me for.”
She shifts, chewing the inside of her mouth. “How do you want me to thank you, Mr. Sovereign?”
Is she baiting me? I narrow my gaze, stepping out into the hall. It’s become clear in the last few minutes that she wants me, but she’s confused. She doesn’t know if she can trust me yet.
Probably because I just asked her to trade her body for protection, a bit of forgiveness, and a plot of land.
“Read that contract,” I say. “Goodnight.”
I shut the door and stride down the hall. Instead of going to the bedroom, I push open the doors to the game room and shut them behind me. I’m not a smoker, but fuck…every time I go near her, I feel like I need a cigarette. I know there’s an old pack in here somewhere and I retrieve it and kick open the balcony doors.
The stars are bright. Up to my left are the distant bumps of the cliffs, barely visible. The night feels just like it did seven months ago, when I pulled off on the side of the highway.
I think that was the moment when I decided to make her mine.
I’ve been patient. Now I see the fruits of my labor so close I can almost sink my teeth in and feel the juice drip down my neck. I see that she wants me too, even if she doesn’t know it yet, and that makes me want to snap and eat her alive.
Instead, I wait. Patience is my only virtue.
There will be no sleeping tonight. I doubt there will be until I’m in my bed with her beside me, so I stay where I am for a long time after my cigarette is done.
