Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
“I considered different styles and worked with my dad on a few other blueprints, but I decided with my parents’ house being a historical home, I didn’t need to build something on the same property that didn’t fit the same era.”
You couldn’t see his parents’ house from here, but I understood his meaning. The trees we had passed down the long road that led back here fit with the house. They reminded me of an old Southern homestead.
“Let me show you the back,” he said as he took my hand in his.
I glanced down as our fingers intertwined before falling into step beside him. Why did our holding hands this way feel like something … more? We’d had sex, done very naughty things together, but this was different. It made everything we had shared seem real rather than fleeting. I had to stop my head from going there, or I might never come back from it. What then? I’d be on the run with Dovie while always looking back, wondering where he was. What he was doing. Who he was with. If he had met the woman he’d marry before bringing her into this home to live with him.
Yuck. I hated thinking about it. No! I didn’t want to believe she was out there. This was Storm’s home, and it would only be him living here. I’d tell myself that and hope it stuck.
Realizing I was missing everything because of my internal battle, I tried to pay more attention to the detail. There wasn’t much in the way of personal effects. It could be a show home really. One that people vacationed in, but not one that appeared truly lived in. Much like the places where Dovie and I stayed. No photographs or portraits to signify who lived here. Who he loved enough to see on his walls or sitting about on display.
When we reached a set of glass doors, he opened one, then waved his hand for me to go out first. Stepping out onto the wide back porch, I noticed a swinging bed to the right and a fireplace. I started to say something about it when a sweet smell wafted up to us.
I inhaled deeply, then turned to look back at Storm. “What is that smell?” I asked, breathing it in again.
He walked over and flipped a switch. The backyard was suddenly lit with lights illuminating the trees. There were so many large, beautiful trees. Only a few feet from the house, rows began and seemed to go on forever in the darkness.
“Peaches are starting to get ripe,” he said simply.
“Peaches!” I gasped, walking closer to the edge of the porch to look out at them. “Those are all peach trees?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I have some that I picked today in the kitchen if you’d like one.”
Scratch the jealousy thing. I was completely green with envy of the woman he’d one day fall in love with and marry. The man had peach trees! Was it not enough that he was sexy as hell, had a magical tongue, a big and pierced cock, and a house straight out of a dream?
“You have peach trees,” I muttered aloud.
Storm moved up behind me, and I felt the heat from his body, wishing I didn’t want to turn around and bury myself in his chest. Cling to him like he was mine. Although nothing would ever be mine. I didn’t have that kind of luxury.
His arms slid around me, and I closed my eyes.
“Yeah, I have peach trees,” he agreed in a husky whisper before he placed a kiss on the side of my bare neck. “I picked some that were especially juicy so that I could lick their juices off your body tonight.”
Why was he doing this? Was it not enough that he’d gotten to me? That he had made me want him? Even after all the hateful things he’d said to me, I craved him. He’d accused me of voodoo, but it was him who was spinning some dark, powerful spell over me.
“Don’t,” I said, trying to step out of his arms, but they tightened around me and held me there.
“Don’t what?” he asked as he trailed his tongue along my earlobe.
Jesus have mercy. Or Satan. Whoever wanted to step in and take control of this situation. I was willing to take help from whoever.
“Storm, what are you doing?” I asked desperately.
He hummed, sending shivers down my body. “Tasting you. Thinking you don’t need any fucking peaches to taste delicious. You’re already the sweetest thing I’ve had in my mouth.”
I wrapped my hands around his wrists, wishing I had the power to rip them away and run. Save myself. If I was even salvageable anymore. I was perhaps too far gone. Wrecked by this man completely.
“I can’t do this,” I said, panting as he licked at the curve of my neck.