Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“I’m still going to leave.”
“Can I kiss you goodbye then?”
“I’d rather you just kissed me. Goodbye sounds messed up. And sad.”
“Okay.” She leans back into me, pressing her palm flat against my chest, and I’m so close to doing something, though I’m not sure what that something is because my emotions feel like they’re being pulled in a hundred different directions. She’s not staying. This kiss isn’t about that. I guess this kiss is just us kissing each other because we want to, and that could be a beautiful thing in and of itself. I know a lot of people wouldn’t agree, and they wouldn’t think it was right, but I’m also not one of those people who give up on anything easily, and Echo is so, so much more than anything. As long as we’re both here on this earth, then we have time. This isn’t goodbye, even if she leaves San Diego. She could always come back. Or I could go and find her. She’s right. Goodbyes suck, so this isn’t one. I’m not going to let this be a goodbye.
Her hands rake through my hair as she kisses me, starting us off right again, and her tongue is in my mouth, doing crazy things to my tongue. My dick is hard enough that if I walked into it by accident, I’d probably knock myself flat on my ass and maybe even knock myself out while I was at it. My hand tangles in her, which is soft as silk and so sexy. I love the feel of her hair and curves, I love the noises she makes again as our lips battle it out, I love her hot breaths and the way her body vibrates against mine, and I love that she scrapes her teeth over my bottom lip and looks up at me, her cobalt blue eyes huge and heavy like I’m everything she’s been craving her whole life, though she had no idea what it was until now.
There is nothing worse than an unfulfilled craving.
“Do things,” she whisper-yells, but holy tagadolmopole, do her words ever pack a punch. “Just a little,” she clarifies. “Not all the way. We’re in a treehouse, for goodness sake. Just a few innocent things.”
“I…are you serious?” I’m not sure, at this point, what innocent things are. My brain spins with it, picking out a few scenarios, but they’re all very, very un-innocent.
“Well, if you don’t, you’ll probably topple over with that bulge in your pants going on, and I’ll be unsatisfied, and it just won’t be good all around. We’re here now. We could…um, see if, uh…see if it’s as good as the kisses are.”
“Are you sure, Echo?”
“The fact that we’re up here in a treehouse and also were married and now almost divorced, we don’t even know each other very well, I just basically bailed on joining your family, and things should be awkward, and I’m making it worse?”
I gulp. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
Her eyes soften, doing me in. “It’s crazy, but of all the places in the world I’ve ever been, your arms feel safe. You. You feel safe. This treehouse feels safe. I don’t mind making a good memory. Maybe that’s all I can ever give you.”
“You’ve given us all a lot more than that. I mean…never mind, that just sounded wrong.”
“I know what you meant. It’s the thought that counts.”
I almost groan. My heart is thundering at a booming pace, the most beautiful woman on earth just asked me to fuck her, and I’m standing here like a statue instead of moving to do something with my fingers or my tongue to prove that her faith in me and my O-giving ability is well founded. I’m flattered. Really, I am. But I want to be more than flattered. At the same time, I don’t want to hurt her. I feel like this could be one of those throw-caution-to-the-wind moments for both of us, and later, we’ll feel differently about it.
“Okay, I’ll ask differently,” she says when I still can’t move. “Let’s be each other’s happy places for the next, oh, fifteen minutes or so. We’re adults. We can handle that, can’t we?”
I’d like to tell her that I already know I’d like her to be my happy place for much longer than fifteen minutes, but I also know it would scare her and make everything worse. She probably already knows. I offered to make her part of our family, for goodness sake. She totally knows. Life is complicated; people are complicated. We’ve all lived through different things, and we’ve all reacted to our experiences differently. I can’t push her. It wouldn’t be right.
“This isn’t like the books or movies?” I ask her again.
She knows exactly what I mean, though I’m not sure how. “I don’t really read those kinds of books or watch those kinds of movies, but if you’re referring to falling in love because an orgasm happened, then no, it’s not like that. No matter how good the orgasm would be, I still can’t stay.”