Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 314(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 314(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
“Fuck,” he groaned, like my declaration had loosened something inside him. He kissed me again, harder, hungrier, and then he pressed the heal of his palm over that aching bundle of nerves just as he pumped his fingers inside me—
I flew apart.
Shattered into a million glittering pieces.
“James,” I moaned into his mouth, and he deepened the kiss like he wanted to devour my cries of pleasure as I trembled around him, each wave stronger than the next, making my body jerk slightly against his.
He worked me through the throes of it, slowing his pace as he dragged out my orgasm until it tapered off into a blissful sort of satisfaction I’d never felt before. Gently, he pulled his fingers from me, settling my dress back around my hips.
I kissed him again, slow and languid and lust-hazy as I slid my hands over his abdomen and down, reaching for the zipper on his pants, fully prepared to return the favor—
“Anne?” Sephie’s voice rang from the direction of the house, her tone colored in worry. “Anne, where are you?”
Jim pulled away almost reluctantly.
“They’re worried about you,” he said.
“I don’t care,” I argued.
“Yeah you do,” he said. “And it’s okay. You belong in there, and I belong out there.” He motioned toward the drive, where his car was no doubt waiting to take him far away from this place. Far away from me and all the drama I brought to his life.
“Jim, don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“With such finality.”
He parted his lips, but now Cannon was yelling for me, and their voices were getting closer.
“I’m coming!” I yelled back, hoping to appease them long enough for me and Jim to sort this out.
“Again?” he joked, and it did little to lighten the rising panic in me.
He was going to leave and pretend like this never happened. I could sense it as easily as I could sense when he was holding back.
“Try to enjoy the rest of your evening,” he said, heading away from me and toward the drive. “I’ll see you at work.”
And that was that.
He left me standing there, still flushed from what he’d just done to my body, gaping at his back as he walked away.
I shook my head, forcing myself to not let the confusion and worry and doubt steal the one thing his touch had given me—because for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel ashamed or regretful after intimacy.
I felt seen.
And that was something to hold on to, even if I’d never experience it again.
CHAPTER 8
Jim
It’d been a week since Thanksgiving, and I swear I could still taste Anne on my tongue.
I was losing my mind with need.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the way her lips curved up as she came on my fingers. Every time I breathed, I caught a whiff of her floral and spice scent.
Every time she spoke to me at work, I heard her sighing my name against my mouth as she flew apart around me.
When she showed up to work the next day, she acted like nothing happened, so I acted like nothing happened, even though we both knew perfectly fucking well what happened.
We’d crossed a line. Hell, we’d obliterated that line. I’d stomped out of that dinner fully aware I’d never be good enough for her…but she’d chased me.
She’d come after me.
Something she hadn’t done when her father tore us apart all those years ago. Back then, I’d waited for her. I selfishly hoped she’d choose me over her inheritance and her father’s demands, but she never came.
Last week she had. Not just for me, but because of me, and both ways were driving me to the point of breaking.
I knew we couldn’t work.
I knew her father would likely pull the same shit he did a decade ago and she’d have to abide by his rules. I was fully aware that I wasn’t worth the millions he had waiting for her, but did any of that matter right now?
No.
Not when I couldn’t stop laughing with her, praising her for how great she was doing at work, seeing her the same way I saw her back then only with more depth and appreciation than my teenager self could ever muster.
Even though we were adamantly ignoring the giant, lust-crazed elephant in the room, we’d fallen into such an easy rhythm it was like we’d been working together for years. Which was exactly why I could tell something was wrong with her today.
She’d been tense all day, the set of her shoulders tight, and the tip of her tongue sharp. She kept snapping and then apologizing to me right before her eyes would go distant in a way that told me she wasn’t fully here at all. She kept going somewhere else, and I was dying to know where.