Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 44622 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 223(@200wpm)___ 178(@250wpm)___ 149(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44622 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 223(@200wpm)___ 178(@250wpm)___ 149(@300wpm)
Her soft moan only spurs me on. Our breath and tongues tangle as one song flows into the next. I get lost in her and the rhythm. No one else exists. Nothing else matters. With her, it never does.
"Ridley," she whimpers when my hands skim her sides before sinking into her hips. "I need you."
Those three little words break me.
I grab her hand, pulling her from the dance floor. We don't say goodbye. We just run. Toward solitude. Toward us.
We barely make it to the truck before I'm all over her. We fuck in the backseat, frantic and messy. She rides me with her hair tangled around her face in a wild halo and my name on her lips, our bodies crashing together again and again.
She's a goddess on top of me, claiming what belongs to her. My body. My heart. My fucking soul. I give it all to her, holding nothing in reserve.
"Are you still afraid?" I ask when the storm passes and the sweat is drying on her skin. She's in my arms, splayed across my lap like a wanton sacrifice.
"A little," she whispers.
I tip her head back, brushing my lips across hers. "I'm not going anywhere."
It's a reassurance, a promise, and a reminder all rolled into one. I'm not going anywhere. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. Maybe I just need to work a little bit harder to prove it to her.
Chapter Eight
Paisley
"Aunt Paiswey!" Lyra cries, racing across the yard with her arms thrown out wide as soon as Ridley and I step outside.
I kneel, setting her gift in the grass beside me before scooping her into my arms with a soft cry. "Princess!" I spin her in a circle, kissing all over her face. "Happy birthday!"
"I'm free now!" she says, beaming at me as she holds up four fingers instead of three.
"Yeah, you are." I grin, smoothing down her hair. Lucy put it in a braid, but it's already a mess. I'm not really surprised. Little Lexi is the chill all day, every day. Not Lyra. She has one speed, and it isn't slow and steady. She crashes through life with zeal all day, every day. "Are you having fun?"
"This is da best day eber!" she declares, squirming in my arms. "Daddy gots a bouncy castle!"
"I see that," I say, laughing quietly as I look around. Lucy and Oliver's backyard has been turned into a three-year-old's birthday paradise. Picnic tables are set up beneath canopies to the right, with buffet tables in the middle. A pile of gifts has grown to ridiculous sizes on a table to the left of it. Her bouncy castle dominates the center of the yard, with games set up all around it. Purple and pink balloons and streamers are hanging everywhere.
How the heck they managed to do all of this since yesterday, I don't even know. I feel guilty for skipping out on hanging with Lucy yesterday. She probably needed help, and I just ditched her for Ridley. I'm a terrible friend.
"Unca Widley!" Lyra squeals as if she just noticed him, launching herself from my arms directly into his. She flings her little arms around his neck, squeezing hard. "You camed!" Her gaze falls to the box wrapped in purple paper in his opposite hand. "For me?"
"Of course I came, Sprout. I promised I would, didn't I? And yes, of course it's for you."
"You neber comed a'fore," she says seriously.
"I know." Guilt flickers across his face. "But things are different now, Lyra. I plan to be here a lot more from now on."
"Pwomise?" She holds her pinky out for him.
"Promise," he says, hooking his through hers.
She beams up at him. "No bweaking it. It's da rules."
"I'll never break a promise," he says, his eyes locked on me even though he's talking to her. My heart flutters at the look on his face. He's so damn serious, like he's vowing with his entire soul to follow through.
It's hard not to believe him. He spent most of yesterday apologizing. This morning, too. Every chance he gets, he tells me how sorry he is that he wasn't here. He's trying so damn hard to make it up to me and prove that this time will be different.
He took me out to an early breakfast this morning. He rented out the whole damn pier at Pismo Beach just so we could enjoy the water together. While we were sitting there, he slipped a necklace around my neck. I don't even know when he had time to buy it, but it's so damn beautiful. The pendant is a tiny shark swimming through a heart covered in diamonds.
"The closest I ever plan to let you get to those sharks," he said with a wink as he clasped it around my neck.
I fell in love with it immediately. And I'm falling more in love with him by the minute. It's beautiful in a terrifying kind of way. I feel like he already holds every piece of my heart. How much more can he possibly claim when he already has it all? And yet, little by little, he's finding new pieces to make his own.