Read Hooked Up: Book 3 for Free Online

off.”
    “Bullshit! You haven’t even called me, you haven’t picked up your cell—you’ve been avoiding me!”
    His voice was gentle. “I haven’t called you because I knew you needed time to sort your head out. Let’s face it, Pearl, you were all over the place. You needed time alone to reflect; not only those nightmares and all that shit, but on the whole Sophie issue, which I hear is resolving itself nicely. She told me you bumped into each other.” He cupped his large hand on my butt and I was too mesmerized by him to move. “I didn’t get in touch, chérie, because things were too haywire.” He breathed into my ear and added huskily, “But it’s been hell for me; I’ve missed you like crazy. You’re all I can think of, night and day. I’m obsessed with you. I’ve been going around with a hard-on for two weeks. Please Pearl, calm me down. I feel like an animal—I need you—I need you, baby.”
    My heart was racing and my stomach churned in nauseous waves. I was so crazy about this man it was literally making me feel sick. “You just want to fuck me and then go right back to Laura,” I spat out. “What were you doing bringing her that massive box? A gift, no doubt—perhaps a Kelly Bag?”
    Squint lines radiated from his face as if he was amused, but he noticed the set fury on my face and stated quietly, “I was bringing Laura her books from my house in Provence, that’s all. You didn’t like them being there—I wanted to make you feel more at home.”
    “That’s crap and you know it! Why didn’t you get Madame Menager to just Fedex them?”
    “Because the last time I used Fedex, the package, which happened to be worth a lot of money, went AWOL for three weeks. Madame Menager had put Royaume Uni on the address and it went back and forth to Romania three times—they used the first two letters, the RO. Customer service in France is a disaster, I didn’t want to risk it. I needed to pop by my house– the pool’s being worked on, so I picked up the books while I was at it.”
    “Why was it gift-wrapped, then?”
    “The hotel did that. I’d bought some cashmere scarves and things that I was going to have sent to my mother, so they took the liberty of wrapping the box of books, obviously assuming it was also a gift.”
    I flinched and eyed him suspiciously. I so wanted to believe him. “That doesn’t explain all the information Laura has about me. How did she know about me and Alessandra Demarr? Laura said nasty things to me, Alexandre. That you think I’m a ‘loony’ with a ‘slutty past,’ she knows stuff about me that only you could have told her.” I pushed my hands fiercely at his chest to shove him away, but another rush of desire flooded through me when I touched him. That chest, those abs, and his smooth skin.
    “She said what? I sure as hell didn’t say any of those things. How could I say them when I don’t even think them?”
    “Well, you told her about Alessandra!”
    “No, I didn’t.”
    “Well someone did and it wasn’t Sophie and it wasn’t Alessandra and it wasn’t me. You are the only other person that knows.”
    “This is insane!”
    “That’s why it’s time for you to leave now, please. I don’t ever, ever want to see you again. Please exit from my loony, lesbian, slutty-past life!”
    He held my shoulders. There was no point trying to push him away. Too solid, too strong, too determined.
    His eyes flit about as if recalling something. “Alessandra must have said something to Sophie, maybe to rile her up, it doesn’t make sense—”
    “No, Sophie doesn’t know. If she did she would have hardly upgraded my plane ticket to first class. Please go now, Alexandre.”
    “She didn’t upgrade you. I did.”
    “Did Sophie tell you my flight time?”
    “She did, but I knew it already.”
    “What? How? You’re spying on me?”
    His mouth tipped up crookedly as if he wanted to smile, but he stopped himself. “Was it comfortable enough for you in