Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 29029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 145(@200wpm)___ 116(@250wpm)___ 97(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 145(@200wpm)___ 116(@250wpm)___ 97(@300wpm)
Not because she loves me—at least not in the way I love her—but because she trusts me.
And I’m not being that person, not when I tell her I’m so turned on and she’d better stop me now.
I draw in a deep breath, hold it for a moment, and then exhale.
“I’m sorry, Jen. I shouldn’t have said anyone could do this for you. I will never make you do anything you don’t want to do. All you have to say is no. I can control myself. I will control myself.”
“I don’t want to tell you no, Max.”
“Damn, Jen. Do you have any idea how much your words affect me? How much your very presence affects me?”
“I think I do.” She glances at my crotch. “Because I’m feeling something very powerful. Something I never imagined was even inside me.”
“Jenna,” I say. “Are you attracted to me? I mean, sexually?”
“I am. More than I thought I would be, Max.”
Though her words strike a nerve, I’m not insulted by them. She still thinks of me as her best friend, but perhaps she’s finding something more.
I can only hope.
Because this woman… Jenna Holland…
She sure as hell comes with a lot of baggage now, but I still want her.
She’s still the only woman in the world for me.
All those years ago, I was right. I was right when I had those feelings. They didn’t disintegrate. They didn’t fall away.
Yes, I had to let her go for my own mental health. I had to learn to exist in a world without Jenna Holland. So I did. I learned to be content. I found my way.
But now she’s back, and I have the chance—the chance that I longed for all those years ago.
I can’t blow it.
“Good. I’m attracted you too, Jenna. You’re so beautiful.”
She blushes then—a gorgeous rosy pink that permeates her cheeks.
“I’ve always thought you were beautiful.”
I stop speaking because I was about to mention her eyes. The striking blue eyes that gave her the island name.
I cannot mention her eyes. At least not tonight.
“For so many years I never felt beautiful,” she says. “There was no beauty on that island, Max. Nothing but ugliness.”
“You don’t have to talk about that.” I push a lock of her hair behind her ear.
“Yeah, that’ll just taint tonight, and I don’t want that. I don’t ever want anything to blemish what happens between us tonight.”
What I can’t tell her is that it’s already blemished. Because I’m in love with her, and this night will mean so much more to me than it does to her. But if this is the gift she needs from me in this moment, I will happily give it to her.
“I want you,” I tell her. “I want you very much right now, and I desperately want to kiss those sweet lips again.”
“What’s stopping you, then?”
I press my lips to hers.
12
JENNA
His lips again. Those full, firm lips that capture mine so completely. His probing tongue, and even his teeth, nibbling at my lower lip.
This kiss is something dreams are made of. Something that happens between lovers.
Max isn’t my lover, of course. Though in the technical sense, I suppose he is.
He kisses me deeply, passionately, even a bit harshly.
And I love it. I love every freaking second of it.
But he breaks it almost as quickly. “God damn, Jenna. God damn.”
Then he pulls me back to him, ravishes just my lips once more.
We kiss again for timeless moments, until he breaks again to take a breath, but before he descends on my lips, he grabs me into his arms and carries me like a child through the living area to a door.
His bedroom.
We enter his bedroom…which houses his king-size bed.
Has he made love to Mimi in this bed?
The spear of jealousy surprises me. Of course he made love to Mimi in this bed. They were engaged.
I wipe the thought from my mind as he sets me gently on the bed.
“I’m going to ask you this only once more,” he says, his gaze serious. “Are you absolutely sure about this? That this is what you want?”
“Very sure,” I say on a breath. “I want you so much right now I can’t see straight, Max.”
He unbuttons his shirt, spreads the two halves, and I suck in a breath at his gorgeous chest.
Black hairs are scattered over it, and my God, his pecs are gorgeous, and his abs—a six pack. A sculpted six pack.
“You’ve been working out,” I say.
He doesn’t answer, just burns me with those dark eyes. Until—
“You want me to keep going?”
I nod. “Please.”
He unsnaps his jeans, slides them over his well-formed ass, bringing his muscular thighs into my view.
He’s wearing boxer briefs. Forest-green boxer briefs that hug those gigantic thighs.
And though I’ve never found men’s underwear sexy? My God, I do now.
He removes his jeans and throws them over the back of an armchair along with the shirt.