Open For Him (BBW / Billionaire Erotic Romance) by Karolyn James Read Free Book Online Page B

For more doubt.  For more... scars.
    Her fingers twitched as she pulled up the left side of her shirt.  She had long since ditched the dress, rolling it into a big black ball and throwing it to the back of closet.  She told herself she'd never wear it again.  She didn't need to pretend to be someone else, not for a billionaire.  Her body had gotten what it wanted but no matter what Macy said or did, her body wasn't completely satisfied.
    She lifted her shirt and looked at the jagged scars.  They were ugly and misshapen, two of them crossing at the most sensitive spot.  That spot was still tingly when touched.
    A few seconds of looking at the scars was a few seconds too many.
    Macy let her shirt fall and she turned to her bed.  There she hoped to find peace and a place to console herself but she received nothing of the sort.  She tossed and turned, and closing her eyes only made her see Derreck.  And no matter what she did, she couldn’t stop hearing his words.
    About hiding.
    He was ultimately in control, whether Macy liked it or not.  For a man who came across strong and commanding, not once did he pass judgment on her.  He flirted with her, he offered a wild night, he touched her, he pleasured her.  Not once did he touch her curves with fingers that didn’t want to be touching her.  Not once did he question a thing she did or said.  Or how she looked.  Or reacted.
    All Derreck wanted from Macy was the truth of her life.  To break down the wall, to open the door she hid behind, and just be... real...
    Finally, Macy rolled to her back, staring at the blackness of her room. 
    Then it came to her, everything in her life was hidden.
    Her paintings and all the supplies were hidden in a closet.  Hell, even her full length mirror was hanging from the back of her bedroom door.  When she opened the door, it hid the mirror.
    Everything...
    Hidden.
    Her eyes began to close as she begged herself to get some sleep.  The morning and work would come fast.  What were the odds that a gorgeous billionaire like Derreck Hagan would want to waste another second with Macy?
    That last thought came to her as she finally succumbed to sleep.  And it was the one thought that lingered the whole next day.  Every time the phone rang, she thought it, wondering if it was Derreck calling.  Every time the door opened to the gallery, she stood, thinking and wishing it was Derreck.
    When the mailman saw her, he waved his usual handful of junk mail.  Macy collapsed into her chair and fought the urge to sigh.  Sighing would have allowed that horrible feeling of crying to creep its way back in.
    “Not excited to see me?”
    “Sorry, Hank, didn’t mean to just sit like that.”
    Macy took the mail and smiled at the aged mailman.  His grey hair stuck out of his hat, but somehow matched his puffy cheeks and large, red nose.  He had a humble face but his eyes told a story of a lonely man. 
    “How’s your morning?” Hank asked as he double checked his mailbag for any leftover mail.
    “I’m alive and I made it to work.”
    “The first part I like,” Hank said.  “The second...”  He waved his hand.  “... that’s a crapshoot, right?”
    Macy nodded.
    “But we all have to work.”
    “Yeah, to hide behind our real lives and what we want to do,” Macy said.
    “What?  You don’t think I dreamed of becoming a mailman as a kid?”
    “Did you?”
    Hank laughed.  “No.  I wanted to build tree houses.”
    “Why didn’t you?  Why don’t you?”
    Hank leaned over Macy’s desk.  “Turns out, I’m afraid of heights.  So much for that career.”
    He tapped his hand on the desk and wished Mary a great afternoon.
    The conversation shouldn’t have had any value to Macy but it did.  It really did.  Imagine having a dream and not being able to follow it... because of fear?
    Macy scoffed; she was living that nightmare.
    All she had to do was look in the closet at her apartment to understand that kind of fear.  She