Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
His gaze narrows, intent in his stare that I do not understand, but I want to. Every part of me wants to. An answer to my challenge flickers in his eyes, a wicked promise that he is about to push me to my limits, but there is a question there, too. Can I handle it and him?
Rebellion rises in me with a lift of my chin. Doubt me. I dare you.
“What do you want?” he asks.
Of course, he’s turned it back on me.
“You know what I want. To touch you. If I can’t—”
He presses my hands behind me and catches them with one of his bigger hands before cupping my face and kissing me until my toes curl. I moan with the taste of him, with the demand and promise of wicked things on his tongue. I moan again with the idea that he has now made me his captive, and the unknown is, oh, so sweet with this man.
His hand slides down to my breast, cupping it, and teasing my nipple, the sensations his fingers create slide through me and settle low and heavy, and the ache he’s created between my legs clenches my sex.
He rips his mouth from mine, and my breath rasps from my lips, my chest rising and falling while his eyes rake over my naked breasts. My nipples are officially tight balls, and every part of me is tingling. If I don’t touch him, I’m going to lose my mind, which I suspect is his plan, but I don’t even care.
I try to free my hands, tugging against him, done with this hands-off rule, and all but burning with the intensity, but I do not win this battle. He releases my wrists, but the minute I’m free, he rotates me to the beam and flattens my hands on the hard surface.
He’s behind me then, his thick erection nestled to my naked backside, and then I yelp when he gives my cheek a little smack, the erotic sting that is far more arousing than it is painful.
“I’m going to release you, but do not move.”
The leap of my pulse is instant, dancing around wildly while adrenaline rushes through me. The truth is, my sex life has been boring. My life has been boring, or rather cautious, in ways I once was not. But there are reasons—reasons I’ve allowed to become excuses. I don’t know what to expect with Ethan, and I like it.
“And if I do?” I ask, trying to look back at him, but it’s impossible, not from my present submissive position.
His body encases mine from behind, and his breath is warm on my neck, intimately close to my ear, as he says, “I can stop anytime you want me to stop, Zoey. And the minute you say no, I will. Make sure it’s what you really want. Don’t move.”
My body has never been so alive, so sensitive to a mere suggestion or another human being's touch. No, I don’t want to stop. I don’t want him to stop. I’m not going to move. My decision is made.
He lingers there a moment, his fully clothed, hard body next to my naked body, and when he seems to read my agreement and understanding, his hands ease from my hands and then settle on my shoulders. “Good girl,” he murmurs, and then his teeth replace one of his hands, scraping against my delicate skin. I moan and arch my back. It’s in this moment that his palm comes down on my backside again, and I gasp only to realize his hands are not only gone.
He’s gone.
He’s no longer touching me, and I am desperate for whatever comes next.
Chapter Fifteen
The music shifts, and the hotel room fills with a sultry song, and a female singer’s voice, that I do not know, the whiskey deepening the impact of the words that mean nothing to me and somehow everything. She sings about a man, a broken heart, and lust. So much lust. It consumes me. No, Ethan consumes me.
All I really know right now is my need for a man I’ve only just met and believed I hated. And maybe I do hate him, maybe morning light will bring regret and pain and problems I can’t undo, but I can’t seem to care right now. I just want him to touch me again.
And as unsettling as I would expect standing here like this, with my back to him, naked, exposed, and vulnerable would be, there is something safe in this space, in hiding my face, and the lie that is my identity. It’s as empowering as being nameless.
I know the minute he’s returned, even before he touches me, my heart leaping with the shift in the air, my body humming. There have been so many quotes about anticipation and pleasure, and I understand them all now. He’s too smart, too much of a skilled lover, I sense, not to understand them as well. His hand, just his hand, settles on my arm, and goosebumps lift on my skin, the touch riveting in a way I could not explain if I had to.