Page 90 of Love What's Left
Her skin glowed with an olive-toned sun-ripened tan, and her chin came to the cutest fucking point.
Right then and there, I made a plan to have her up in my room with my hand buried in that dark mass, controlling her head as she bobbed over my cock. It was arrogant, sure, but I knew what women liked, and it was me.
I leaned against the white porch railing and smirked, lifting my drink to my lips. “Hey, gorgeous.”
She raised her beautiful burnished-mahogany gaze from the novel in her lap to look my way. Her attention trailed down my body, then back up, but her mouth curved downward.Unexpected.
“Good book?” I asked.
“It is,” she said.
Then she went back to reading.
“My name is Gabriel, like the angel.”
When she glanced back at me, I grinned. A little back and forth, and she’d give me the opening I needed to offer to take her to heaven.
She huffed and lowered her book. “I know who you are.”
Of course she did. “Tell me about you.” She was the former scholarship girl. “You must be smart.”
“Because I read? If I tell you my name, will you even remember it?”
“I already know your name, Sydney Walsh.”
She frowned. “Then why are you calling me ‘gorgeous’?”
I laughed drunkenly, my words not nearly as clear as I intended them to be. “Because you are. I’ll tell you a secret. I have two nicknames for the women I fuck. Sweetheart and Gorgeous. You made the upper tier. Saves forgetting who you’re with in the middle of it. Nobody likes someone moaning the wrong person’s name.”
I expected her to roll her eyes and laugh. The women at the clubs and bars loved that line. They loved my limo and Tom Ford suits. Always took what I gave them and giggled in gratitude. They begged for my money and my big cock.
She curled her lip in disgust. “If I had a squirt bottle, I’d spray you with it.”
I blinked slowly, struggling to process that not only was she not amused, she was dead serious.
I watched her owlishly. “You’re a prickly little thing. Not into men?”
She covered her face with her hand and air seeped from her mouth in a frustrated, nearly silent squeak of annoyance. When she revealed her eyes, they shot daggers at me. “It’s none of your business, but yes, I’m into men. Kind ones who are emotionally intelligent, responsible, ambitious, and sober. I listed a whole slew of criteria there, McRae, and you can’t claim a single one.”
“Your dream man sounds boring as fuck.”
She snapped her book shut. “Do you even have a job?”
“I can be very nice when I like you, you judgmental bitch.” At the time, I didn’t notice the difference between her question and my answer, still hung up on the way she said I wasn’t kind.
Maybe I was the fuckup of the family, but I was anicefuckup. I was a goddamn sweetie pie. Grandma Miller and all my aunts said so . . . minus the swearing. “Why would I work some nine-to-five when I can spend more money before breakfast than you’ll make in five years doing whatever the hell you do?” I couldn’t remember the rest of her list, but I didn’t care.
I didn’t know why I couldn’t laugh her comment off and go down to my cousin Jack’s bar to find someone else to scratch my sudden itch. This woman had a chip on her shoulder the size of a boulder.
“Charming.” She stood, left her book on the swing, and approached me where I leaned with my ass propped on the porch railing.
I watched curiously as she moved close enough that mere inches separated our bodies. Beyond my own alcohol-fueled fumes, I could scent her shampoo or lotion. Fresh, clean. Floral and citrus. Despite my offended ego, her closeness made me want to purr.
“If hate-fucking turns you on, let’s go. I’ll bend you over this railing here and now.” I didn’t give a shit about security cameras or that this house was crawling with friends and family.
She gripped my jaw with a strong hand and searched my eyes. “You’d do it too. Did you forget there’s a child in this house? Or do you just not care about the trauma you could cause Phee or the example you’re setting?”
I turned my face away from hers, not about to admit I’d forgotten my toddler niece could wander out here at any given moment. “It’s not that serious.”
