Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 170885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 170885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
“If I’m pathetic, then what are you? Delusional?”
“If you don’t tell me, I’m walking out right now. Who was it? Who took my fucking place?”
“No one.”
His eyes widen and his grip loosens around my hair, even as he keeps me in place. “Really?”
“Really.”
“No one came here?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Because this is our place and no one else is allowed in it.
But instead of saying that, I lift a shoulder. “What about you? Did you fuck anyone else? I’m going to need names and addresses.”
“You’re mental.” He smiles a little before he shakes his head. “There was no one. I don’t even like sex.”
“You obviously do.”
“Only with you,” he whispers, his fingers stroking my pulse point beside the bandage.
Only with you.
Pride swells inside me and I want to probe about that, but that’s not for now, so I ask the most important question. “Does that mean you’ll stay?”
His answer comes in the most beautiful form.
My lotus flower sighs with resignation as he crashes his lips to mine.
23
BRANDON
I have survived weeks barely able to breathe, so the rush of life that ripples through me feels foreign.
Intoxicating.
Addicting.
I’m trapped again, completely helpless in the arms of the man who flipped my world upside down and refuses to leave.
The man because of whom I’ve barely slept since last week, sick with a level of concern I’ve never felt. Not even for myself.
I plunge my tongue against his and kiss him deeper, my fingers tugging and pulling on his hair until he groans in my mouth.
Until I’m drunk on his taste, his smell, and his warmth. On his breath and the feel of his flexing muscles beneath mine.
But most importantly, on the pulse that beats in his throat.
He’s alive.
He’s here.
His hands land on my hips, tugging me against him as he kisses me with the same ferocity, digging himself into that nook in my chest even I have no access to.
But I don’t care.
As long as I can feel his heartbeat thundering against my chest, as long as I can hear his growls of pleasure, as long as I can smell his intoxicating scent, I can flounder in self-hatred afterward.
I can take on those vicious voices.
I can pretend I’m not an entity of emptiness with no sense of identity whatsoever.
I can take anything as long as I have him.
Because Nikolai is the only one who kisses the pain out of me, even if temporarily.
I trace my lips over his jaw, his high cheekbone, and then down his neck, careful not to touch the plaster covering the injury.
The vibration of his groan sends a shudder through me that ends in my hardening cock.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, kissing around the plaster over and over. “So sorry.”
And it’s not only because I couldn’t save him in time.
I’m sorry about being a coward who can’t kiss him in public but hungers for him in private.
I’m sorry that I retreated after he ended things when I should’ve fought for him.
But most of all, I’m sorry that he even wants me.
I need him in ways words can’t express, and he’s the only person I can do this with, but he can have anyone he wants, considering he’s infinitely secure in his sexuality.
I’m not secure in my body, my sexuality, or my own fucking head.
But he touches me as if he’s blind to all those flaws.
He touches me as if I’m normal, and I need that. I fucking crave it.
“It’s not your fault.” He speaks in that low, growly voice as he reaches a hand beneath my shirt and digs his fingers into my sides. “Stop apologizing for shit you didn’t do.”
Instead of replying, I kiss my way down his inky chest, over his necklace, and nibble on his nipple. I’m rewarded with the rumbling of his voice and the clenching of his muscles.
“You like that?” I ask as I pinch his other nipple.
“Mmm. I like your tongue anywhere.”
I smile against his nipple, tugging on it before I continue down, peppering kisses all over the different shapes and forms of his tattoos. He’s criminally attractive and he knows it so well, which is why he often parades around half naked.
The thought of others enjoying his beauty turns me murderous.
But he’s had no one since me.
That thought makes me hum with pleasure against his abs. No one can touch him but me.
His noises of desire are mine.
His body is mine.
He’s all mine.
I tug on the drawstring of his shorts with my teeth and look up at him.
My breath catches when I find his eyes darkening with unhinged lust as he watches me.
“Fucking beautiful.”
My heart thumps louder. I’ve missed those words and that look. I’ve fucking missed being looked at as if he really thinks I’m beautiful.
I never even considered that I could be beautiful until him.
Maintaining eye contact, I undo the drawstring and pull his shorts down.
And fuck.