Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“Why don’t you do relationships?”
No, this again? I wrapped my arms tight behind his neck. “Come on.”
Breaking away from my strong hold was easy for him. He rose up on his arms, distributing his weight so he could find my knee and slip his fingers beneath the band of lace just above it. “You know, I wanted you to keep these on. Such a shame.” He eased it down below my knee. “You can do the rest. I’m busy.”
He gave a deep, toe-curling thrust.
I gasped and my eyes threatened to roll back into my head. The effect of him was overwhelming. I felt delirious. My hand left his shoulder and yanked the rest of the stocking down, flinging the silk off.
“What is it? Baggage from some asshole in the past?” He kissed me, and it tasted like encouragement. Or persuasion. It was getting hard to think.
“No.” I wished it were that simple. That would be easier to deal with and get over. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why don’t you do relationships, Olivia?” His lips moved along my throat.
“Please.” I despised how weak my voice sounded.
Beneath me, the mattress sank as his knees shifted closer. It was so he could rise all the way up but stay connected to me and strip the last lie from my body.
“Ethan, don’t.” My frustration was red-hot and it threatened to bubble over, but beneath it lurked another emotion. A scary one he somehow knew I buried inside myself, because maybe he felt the same way. There was a desperation to put it into words, share it, and for once to not feel so alone.
“Tell me,” he half-demanded, half-pleaded. He moved inside me, and my traitorous body responded. I couldn’t talk like this, but dear God, I didn’t want him to stop either. “Tell me,” he said again, chanting it back to me like our first time under the mosquito netting.
“I killed those men on the mountain.”
He slowed to a stop. The only sound was our heavy breathing.
Then, he spoke. “You feel guilty about that? Shit, it was you or them.”
“No,” I snapped. “I know that. But since that night, something’s wrong with me. My heart doesn’t work like it’s supposed to. It’s just cold.” The words wouldn’t stop coming. “It’s empty. I don’t feel anything below the surface, like I’m not even alive.”
He took an enormous breath, his gaze unblinking. When I tried to slip away, he seized my waist. “Wait a minute.”
I was shaking, verging on overload. “For what?”
“What you said in the office. What you accused me of doing to you.”
My heartbeat came to a grinding halt.
“You said that I made you . . . feel different.” He shifted back over me, crushing his body to mine. There was no air left to breathe, nowhere else to look. He cupped a hand to my cheek. “Do you feel alive when we’re doing this?”
His nuclear kiss restarted my heart. Holy hell, I did, but only a fraction of that made it into my confession. “Yeah. I do.”
“Good. Me, too.” He pushed a lock of my hair out of his way. “So, let’s keep doing it.”
His warm skin was on mine, his mouth urgent and persistent, and the anger evaporated.
“Yes,” I cried when he began to move again, his steady rhythm building. Desire poured through me, flowing everywhere and sweeping me away. My ankles crossed behind his back. Fingernails coursed down his skin, digging in to his thick muscles, trying to get him closer. I’d give him whatever he wanted, anything, as long as he didn’t stop. Maybe even my broken, useless heart.
Ethan had one hand under me, holding me in place as he drove into me, powerful and deep, each movement better than the last. His wet tongue stroked mine, sending a jolt of pleasure to my center.
Fuck, the things he could do with that tongue.
“I make you feel alive,” he said. His arrogant smile was sexy.
“Don’t be so fucking smug about it.”
I used his amusement to initiate a roll, getting him to turn onto his back. His jaw tightened like he was in pain.
“What is it?” I asked, sitting up on him.
“I’m going to last all of fifteen seconds like this,” he muttered, his hands fumbling for my breasts.
Oh. I smiled and covered his hands with mine. “Let’s make them count, then.”
I ground my hips into him, arching my back, and moaned at the sensation of having him this way. The hands beneath mine tensed.
“Slow. You’re gonna . . . ” he said, breathless.
I kept moving, faster and faster. Waves of pleasure shot up my spine, flowing outward as I drew closer to ecstasy.
Concern crept into his eyes. “Wait.”
No way. My heart was racing, my body aching for release, every last inch of me wanted him to give what only he could. These strange feelings, being out of control, it was so good. And . . . oh, God . . .