Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 106806 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106806 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
“Don’t you?” she asks, and I’m so fixated on the feel of her skin beneath my palm that it takes me a beat to realize what she’s asking.
“No.” Offering the truth makes me feel raw. “I don’t want anyone else. All I can think about is you.”
Her hand finds mine under her shirt. “Why? I’m just this mess you have to clean up.”
“Why?” I dip my face into the cradle of her shoulder and run my nose up the side of her neck. “I can’t stop thinking about you.” Her hand squeezes mine. “You haunt my dreams. You’re the reason I wake up hard every morning and the reason I rush home every night.”
“Then why don’t you touch me?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t answer that question. I stay away from her because I’m ashamed of how I pulled her in. I stay away because I know she deserves better. I stay away because, up until recently, my need for control was greater than my need for her.
But that’s changed.
“You think you’re the screw-up?” I rasp. “You think you’re the mess, but it’s me.”
She guides my hand over her breast, and I groan at the feel of her beaded nipple under my palm. “Touch me,” she says. “Please. I want you.”
“You’ve been drinking.” My lips skim the side of her neck. She smells like fucking heaven. “You don’t know what you want right now.”
“I’ve known for a long time that I want you.” The words are low but so sure they send blood pumping to my dick. “I like the way you look at me,” she says. “I’ve wanted you to look at me since that first morning at your place. Did everything I could to get those eyes of yours on me.”
I circle her nipple before pinching it through her tank and am rewarded with a groan of approval.
“No one’s ever looked at me the way you do,” she says breathlessly.
I chuckle. “I find that hard to believe, Savvy. You’re fucking beautiful. It’s impossible to miss.” And in those little tank tops and panties she parades around in, I haven’t missed a thing.
“No. I mean . . . like I’m more. Men have looked at me and wanted me before. I know they look at me and . . .” She’s silent a beat. “It’s stupid.”
“I don’t think so.” I scrape my teeth over the shell of her ear. “Tell me.”
“It’s one thing to be wanted by someone who’s attracted to your body. It’s quite another to be wanted by someone who’s . . .”
I wait, impatient for the words but too hungry for the truth to rush her.
“Someone who gobbles up every little bit of you that you give. Like it’s a gift.” She leans her head to the side, giving my mouth access to her neck. I gently suck the tender spot beneath her ear before releasing and waiting for more. “I don’t mean physically. I mean . . .”
“I know what you mean. And you’re right. I can’t get enough of you. Of all of you.”
She arches into my touch as I stroke her nipple with my thumb.
“I’m not usually home in the mornings,” I admit, because she deserves the words too.
She shivers under my touch. “What are you talking about? You’re home every morning.”
“That first morning was a fluke. I usually change at the gym, but I realized I forgot my dress clothes for my meeting with my advisor. Then you were standing in my closet in a T-shirt and a thong, and I couldn’t breathe.”
“I remember that,” she says, spinning around and looping her arms behind my neck. “I’m sure it wasn’t anything you haven’t seen before.”
I huff out a laugh. She doesn’t understand. It’s something she does to me. “The second morning I came home early, I didn’t even have an excuse. I felt like a fucking idiot. But there you were. In another T-shirt and another pair of panties that showed me the curve of your ass.” I grip one hip and squeeze. “All I wanted was to bend you over and sink my teeth into it. That’s the first thing I noticed about you when we met—this fine fucking ass.” I squeeze the fleshy globes and groan at the feel of her in my hands. “At first I couldn’t decide if you were trying to fuck with my head or if you were completely oblivious to what you were doing to me.”
“I wasn’t oblivious. I liked the way you looked at me,” she says. Then, more softly, she says, “Tell me you thought about me.”
I love that she doesn’t doubt it. This isn’t a request for reassurance; it’s a request for the words. “Every fucking day. Every morning when I’d watch you make coffee in nothing but a thin shirt and a skimpy pair of panties and every night when I’d imagine you sleeping in my bed. I’ve wanted you from the beginning, and I only slipped that once. Only let myself cross my own lines that one time.”