Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 60482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
The kitchen has been redone, but it remains beautifully country, with white wooden doors and a wooden counter. It has a huge island bench in the middle, and so much space to store things, I could put my entire room just in this space alone. Travis pours me wine, then starts chopping onions with terrifying competence. “I googled this all day. It’s supposed to be idiot-proof.”
I laugh. “What is it?”
“Vodka sauce. It’s meant to be epic. If it sucks, we’ll order pizza.”
He works fast, wrist flicking, tattoos flexing along his forearm. I lean on the counter, sipping my wine, pretending not to be mesmerized. I help peel garlic, and he tells me about the first tour he ever went on—a rattletrap bus, twenty states in eight weeks, everyone squashed into one tiny space. Until he got big, and then he got his own bus and the crew got another.
“Always good to come home, though,” he murmurs, brows furrowed as he chops herbs. “But I wanted somewhere I could call home, somewhere that is mine.”
“Is that why you bought the house?”
He stirs the sauce, gaze flickering. “Yeah, and this is my home, always has been. Everything I love is here.”
The intensity in the air steams my skin. I want to say something big, something lasting, but I can’t breathe around it.
He points to the fridge. “There’s dough for the bread in there. Grab it?”
I pull out a mixing bowl, heavy with soft dough. Travis dusts flour across the counter, turns out the dough, and hands me a hunk. “Go on, punch it.”
It's stickier than I expect; flour poofs up, clinging to my arm. I try to knead, but it slides everywhere, and we both laugh. “You’re hopeless, kid.”
“Well, I didn’t have kneading dough on my list of things to do tonight.”
“Oh? Well, let me change the narrative.”
He hurls a handful of flour that explodes across my face. I shriek, lunging after him around the island, my pulse hammering in my throat. We collide against the fridge with enough force to knock the breath from my lungs, leaving a ghostly imprint of our bodies on the stainless steel. Our eyes lock, chests heaving, faces inches apart. The air between us crackles like a live wire. Travis reaches down, dipping his thumb in the sauce, then traces it across my bottom lip, his eyes never leaving mine. I capture his thumb between my teeth, sucking the sauce clean before releasing it with a soft pop. "Not bad," I shrug. "Less vodka, more salt."
He tilts his head, eyes dark, mouth tipping into a grin. “You want another taste?”
I’m not sure who moves first. I land in his arms, and he lifts me up onto the counter, flour everywhere, mouth crashing down on mine. He kisses me hard and deep, fingers twisting into my hair, yanking my head back just enough to make it dangerous. I slide my legs around him, pulling him in. Sauce, flour, garlic, the sharp tang of wine on his lips—I want to drown in it.
He palms my breast through my dress, thumb rough against my nipple, and the sensation short-circuits my brain. His other hand slides up under my dress, up my ribs, leaving smears of flour behind. We are half clothed, half crazy, and I want all of him, right here, now. He takes my dress and pulls it up and over my head, tugs hard, and it’s gone. He pulls me close so our skin sticks, chest to chest, hot and frantic.
He drops to his knees, slides my panties off, and buries his face between my thighs. His tongue is the devil—slow then fast, drawing patterns that make me twitch and moan. Flour from his hands streaks my hips and my bum cheeks as he squeezes them hard while his tongue does wicked things to my clit. It takes everything in me not to scream, because I love the way he devours me. It’s like he can’t get enough, like he needs to taste me every single second of every day.
He comes up for air, eyes wild. “I want you so fucking bad, baby. I don’t care if you’re a mess, if you break shit, if you burn down the whole house. I just want you, against this counter, as hard as you can fucking take.”
I gasp, his words making me clench with need.
I yank him up and kiss him, tasting myself on his mouth and not caring. He undoes his jeans—no condom, but he asks, “You on something?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
He’s inside me in a second, slamming me into the countertop. The cold timber and the heat of him, combined with the mess we’ve made, has me coming before I get his name out. He fucks me with a force that feels like violence but is only proof that I’m alive. My back slams against the counter, but it doesn’t hurt, it only urges me on, makes me scream over and over as my head tips back and utensils go flying.