Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“And I spent most of my adult life… doing nothing. I was taking my life for granted. And once Clay was gone, I just… I swore I wasn’t going to do that anymore. I wasn’t going to waste whatever time I had left. I wasn’t going to go to my grave thinking of all the things I wish I’d done.”
“Like going to a rave,” he guessed.
“Yes. And try to conquer my fear of heights. And go see a Broadway musical. The list is endless. When I actually sat down to write down the things I wanted to do, it was the back and front of several pages. All these things I always said I would do ‘one day,’ without realizing that the world is full of tomorrows that aren’t promised.”
“Fuck,” Brooks said, brows raising. “When you put it that way.”
“I’m sure Clay thought he had so much time left to do the things he wanted,” I said, taking a deep breath to fight back the grief. “I just… I want to honor the time he didn’t get by making the most of mine.”
“I get that, I do,” he agreed.
“But?” I asked.
“But,” he agreed, reaching for my foot with both his hands, and starting to press his thumb into the achy sole. “I wonder if the reason it’s been so endless is because it’s… distracting you from your grief.”
“I grieved,” I assured him, trying to assure myself that tears weren’t the only way to grieve, to miss someone, that it didn’t say anything about me that I hadn’t cried, that I didn’t love Clay any less just because I hadn’t broken down in that way. “You weren’t here,” I reminded him, immediately regretting the words when the pain sliced across his handsome face.
“I wish I could have been,” he said, digging his thumb into my arch. “You shouldn’t have been alone.”
“I… wasn’t,” I said, but it was only half true. “I had Sage,” I added.
“Did she know Clay well?” he asked.
“No. I mean, they knew each other. But… no.”
“Then I think you were alone, baby,” he said. “But I’m here now,” he added, pressing into each of my toes that I didn’t realize I’d been holding tension in until he released it.
I sank into the sensations as he finished with one foot and went to the next, leaving me feeling all tingly and sated.
“Keep making noises like that, and I’ll forget I’m not doing this for that reason,” Brooks said.
“I don’t think that’s much of a threat,” I shot back, but I was really enjoying this just being about touch, about a different kind of intimacy I couldn’t have thought to dream up before.
When he was done with my feet, he started rubbing up my calves again before resting on my knees.
“Thanks for dinner, by the way,” I said when the silence stretched long enough to feel awkward.
“Think I need dessert before I head out,” he said.
“Oh, I might have some ice—“ I started. But then his hands pulled at my knees, spreading them wide. “Oh,” I breathed out just before he was between my thighs, his tongue on me.
He let out a little chuckle at my reaction before he really started to focus, working me with slow, almost lovingly, touches, driving me up without a hurry, like he was enjoying it as much as I was.
So I sank into it, letting my eyes drift closed, focusing on the sensations, removing the pressure of “getting there,” since he didn’t seem to care how long it might take.
My hand rested gently on the back of his head as my hips writhed slowly against his tongue and my slow, deep breaths got faster and more unsteady, as the pressure built in my core.
The slow build amplified the intensity so that by the time I was right at that edge, I could feel the sensations throughout my body, the tension in every muscle, just waiting to snap.
Brooks’s fingers slipped inside of me, turning, and stroking gently against my top wall as he kept working me with his tongue.
That was all it took.
The tension snapped, and the orgasm swept through me, stealing my breath, making my whole body go rigid, then release, as the pleasure pinged off of every nerve ending.
The sound that finally escaped me was a choking gasp that had Brooks humming against my clit, sending another surge of pleasure through me before I was finally wrung out.
By the time his head shifted to press chaste kisses to the inside of my thighs, little aftershocks had overtaken me, leaving me trembling as his head shifted up to look down at me, his eyes soft.
I’d imagined him looking like that at me a million times.
It was way better actually getting to see it like this.
For real.
My heart, so beaten down and hollow, felt like it was starting to fill back up.