Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 103050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“Jesus, you’re even sexy eating pizza,” he says as I chew.
I shake my head and swallow. “No one’s sexy eating pizza.”
He pulls out a slice of the same veggie pizza for himself. “If that’s true, you’re the exception to that rule.” He pauses. “But that’s par for the course for you.” He takes a bite of his slice.
I narrow my eyes, trying to make sense of what he just said. “What’s par for the course for me?”
He shrugs. “I’ve never introduced Willow to anyone before. Never sat and eaten pizza with a girl since university. I’ve never… I don’t know.”
Heat burrows in my chest at the thought of being the only woman in Deacon’s life to have met Willow.
I nudge him. “You’re saying I’m special,” I tease, trying to lighten the mood.
He catches my eye, and we stare at each other and the mood’s not so light anymore. His gaze is intense. Searching. It’s like he’s trying to say something without words, and I’m not sure if I want to hear it.
“Because I’m heading back to Chilternshire,” I say. “That probably makes it easier to form a connection.”
“You think?” he asks, taking another bite.
“It keeps the stakes low.” I’m not sure I believe what I’m saying. The stakes don’t feel that low. It feels like I’m losing control of my feelings. That’s exactly what I didn’t want to do. I don’t want to fall for a guy like Deacon. A man who lives three thousand miles away from me. A man with a home life that’s totally complete. A man not looking for a woman to fall for him. I’ve done that before. I don’t want to make the same mistake again.
“The stakes?” he asks.
“Maybe stakes isn’t the right word. Neither of us has to worry about leading the other on, because we both know it’s going to be over.”
“Do we?” he asks.
“When I go back to England.”
He nods but doesn’t say anything.
“We can eat pizza and not worry about being sexy.”
He laughs. “You’re saying I’m not sexy when I’m eating pizza? You’re going to hurt my feelings.”
“Deacon Black, you’re sexy when you’re doing anything.”
He tosses his pizza back in the box and pulls me onto his lap. He rounds his hands over my bottom, pulling me closer so I can feel his erection.
I raise my eyebrows. “Eating pizza gets you hard?”
“Watching you eat pizza gets me hard. Sitting next to you gets me hard. Hearing your voice, feeling your soft skin next to mine. It’s all—”
I cut him off with a kiss. It’s the first time I feel like I’ve had any control over anything physical with Deacon. He’s usually so domineering, so completely in control, that all I can do is let him do what he wants to me. And I love that. But this? Kissing him instead of him kissing me? That’s good too.
But it doesn’t last.
He flips me to my back and is crouched over me on the sofa. “Maybe we need to work up an appetite,” he says from above.
I reach my fingers into his hair, pushing it back, out of his eyes. I slide my legs up and around his waist. “I always have an appetite for you.” He presses his lips to my neck and begins to work his way down my body.
Deacon is undeniably handsome, there’s no doubt about that, but that’s only part of this desire I have for him. It’s so much more complicated than that. He’s more complicated than just being a pretty face. Everything about him has me wanting more. The way he is with his daughter, the way he’s endured his sister’s death and his disrupted upbringing to become a successful businessman and sensitive dad, it’s breathtaking how much I like this man.
He knees up between my legs, and I gasp as he pulls off my leggings and underwear in one swift movement.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he says, his eyes trailing up my legs to between my thighs. He reaches over and shifts up my t-shirt, and I help him and pull it over my head, all too ready to have him inspect me in the way I know he likes to do.
I slip off my bra and lie completely naked before Deacon. He closes his eyes in a long blink, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing, and it makes me feel so completely special, so completely cherished and almost worshipped that any hang-ups about my thirty-six-year-old body that I’ve gathered over the years just disappear. He makes me feel like a goddess.
Watching me, he strips naked, and his muscles bunch and extend, and I wonder if later he would let me bathe him, run soapy hands all over his body, mapping each part of hard and soft on him. I want to know every inch of him.