Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Suddenly I can look around, take in the miles of fields, then the city in the distance.
“I want you forever.”
I gasp at his words, and I’m sure I can feel his heart thudding against my back, hammering just as frantically as mine. It’s hard to know, with all the shivering inside of me, the wind rushing at my face, the world passing below us as we get closer, and the ground seems to rush faster.
“I want everything with you.” He’s shouting the words as if he wants the world to know. Like he never wants to be ashamed of it. “I want a family. A marriage. An entire life. I knew it the second you walked into my office.”
He wraps his arms around me from behind. My eyes fill with tears, and I try to turn to look at him, but the angle of our harnesses makes it impossible.
I squeeze onto his forearms, onto his security, his closeness.
“I want everything,” I try to shout, but my voice cracks, and the words come out shaky.
“What?” he says loudly.
“Everything,” I yell, pushing past the tears. “I want it all. I want you. All of you. All of us. Kids, a family. All of it!”
“All of it,” he repeats, his voice cracking with emotion. “I need to land us. I need to kiss you.”
Tears slide horizontally across my face as the wind streams faster against me. Visions of Dad try to intrude, but like the terrible daughter I clearly am, I push them away.
“Say it again,” I yell as the ground rushes closer to us.
“I want you,” he replies. “All of you. Now tuck your legs.”
I tuck as Silas explained to me before we were harnessed together. He lands us in the middle of a field, gently sitting back, so I naturally fall against him.
We stay like that for a moment, and then his hand darts into action, going for the clip on my right shoulder, the same moment mine does. We laugh as our hands collide, then he grabs it and unclips us.
I undo the clips on the other side, heavily breathing as I fall away, then roll and face him.
We move across the tangled parachute to find each other, my hands clawing against his jumpsuit as I pull my face closer to his.
He kisses me hard, his hand squeezing against my hip, pulling us even closer together.
Our tongues clash hotly, hinting at the pleasure we could share if we went all the way.
“Do you really want it too?” he says, his lips near mine as if he’s getting ready to kiss me again any moment.
Every moment.
For now, we’re alone, just us and the scent of grass and the blue sky. No Dad or Mom or Jimmy or anybody to interfere, to ruin…to judge, rightfully so, that what we’re doing is a betrayal.
But not now.
“Lauren,” he says, tone urgent, as if he could ever think I’d change my mind.
“Yes. I never thought you’d feel the same…about me.”
“I told you I never dated. I told you I wanted kids but was waiting for the right woman.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “Are you saying I should’ve guessed my crush would want me for real?”
“What about the woman of my dreams? I should’ve guessed, huh?” He grins, tickling my side. “Especially with all that talk about dating apps.”
“I’d never join one of those things. I guess I wanted to see if you cared.”
“I do. A lot.”
He kisses me again. We lose ourselves in each other, and then his phone beeps loudly.
“What’s that?” I ask, thinking Dad, an emergency, something terrible happening while we’re here.
“It’ll be the driver. Coming to pick us up. We should walk to the nearest road.”
“He’s already on his way?”
“GPS on my phone,” he says. “But who cares about that? All I care about is us.”
His grin widens, mine doing the same, like we can exist here and never have to think about anything or anybody else.
“I wondered if you felt the same,” he says, squeezing me tightly like he never wants to let go. “When you mentioned wanting to be a mother…and then that you had a crush on me.”
“I’ve been thinking about you as the future dad to my kids for a couple of years.” I shiver against him. “It’s like I had this whole magic future planned out, but I never believed it could be real…that we could sort of….”
“Tattoo it into existence?”
I feel my cheeks flushing, and my heartbeat reverberates throughout my body. “How did you know I was going to say that?”
“Because you’re mine,” he says passionately, pushing his body closer, letting me feel his manhood against my belly…igniting my core like he’s trying to make our future happen now.
“I had a perfect future planned out too. Kids, happiness…but I always knew it would take somebody special.”
“To cage you,” I whisper.