Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66215 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66215 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
I look back at him. “No.”
Hiding behind my bottle, I take a sip. The brew is dark, not the blond beer I prefer, but the bitter liquid soothes the dryness of my lips and the scratchiness in my throat. My thirst is relieved, but my body grows warm with a flush.
I need distance. A single step backs me up against the table. Trapped. I rest my backside against the edge, trying not to look like I’m fleeing.
Leaning forward, he plants his palms on the table and cages me in between his arms. I’m not sure that I’m woman enough for the intensity in his eyes. Instinctively, I know he’ll crush me on every level, but I’m not strong enough to look away.
He puts his beer aside. The bottle slides over the wood as he shifts it a safe distance away. Safe for what?
My mouth turns dry again when he takes the beer from my hands and leaves it somewhere on the side. He grips my waist and lifts me onto the table. I’m sitting like a ragdoll with my legs dangling over the side. Closing his fingers around my knees, he squeezes a little and spreads my legs enough to step between them. He tilts his hips ever so slightly, just enough for the length of his body to press against mine. The unmistakable hardness pushing against my stomach gives me pause. My words are useless again, my ammunition all blanks.
He grips a lock of my hair and inspects it as he rubs it between a thumb and forefinger. “You’re prettier than a doll. Know that?”
I swallow.
“My sister had a doll like this with baby-blue eyes and platinum locks. Never did think that prettiness was close to real,” he muses. “Until I saw you.” He drops my hair and drags his gaze back to my face. Desire sparks in the depth of his eyes, making the amber specs glow in the brown. His voice is low, soft. “It’s been a while.”
My heart trips over a beat, and my breathing quickens. Only, this time, it’s not my illness. The chemicals I took are still in my blood. This reaction is natural. Wrong. I open my mouth, but no words come out.
“You don’t have to say yes just because it’s been a long time for me,” he says even as he cups my breast over the camisole and strokes his thumb over my nipple, teasing the tip into a hard point.
“I…” I gasp when he pinches gently and forget what I wanted to say as he rubs the lace over the hard tip of my breast with the heel of his palm.
The lace adds extra friction. The abrasiveness is almost too much. The boldness and unapologizing crassness of the act catches me off guard. It feeds a secret desire deep inside me, a twisted kind of craving I haven’t admitted to anyone, and my defenses slip just enough for him to steal inside my fantasy.
He’s already lowering his mouth to mine as he says, “You can say no.”
Instead of going for my lips as I expect, he diverts to my neck, but he doesn’t kiss me. He drags his nose along the column of my neck to my temple. Inhaling deeply, he makes a sound in the back of his throat—a groan of appreciation.
“You smell nice,” he says in a husky voice. “Like flowers. What is it?”
“Orange blossoms,” I croak out.
My heart thunders in my chest at where this is going. I’m keeping perfectly still, a cornered animal submitting to the stronger one while I rack my brain for a clever strategy to save myself.
In excruciating gentleness, he catches my hair in a ponytail at the back of my neck and arranges it over one shoulder. He brings his mouth to the exposed shoulder, ghosting a kiss over my skin before bringing his lips to the shell of my ear.
A shiver runs over me. Again he doesn’t press his lips to my skin. Only his breath touches me, bathing heat over that sensitive spot when he says so softly I think I’ve heard wrong, “You’re mine.”
As soon as the promise is spoken, he seals it with a kiss. His lips part over the shell of my ear, grating me with his stubble. It’s a dry, possessive kiss, a kiss that assumes familiarity while sparking with the excitement of exploring new territory.
I go still, not because I’m weak, but because it’s a first kiss. First kisses, no matter where or how they’re given, are sacred. A first kiss tells everything. It tells a woman if a man is going to fuck her or make love to her. It tells her how a man is going to treat her for the rest of her life. It tells her if he’s going to make her coffee the morning after or get his secretary to send impersonal flowers. It tells her if he’s going to hold her hand when they walk together or be engrossed in his phone. It tells if he wants her to shut the door on her way out or if he wants to grow old with her.