Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 36564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 183(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 183(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
“Stop, Annie. Remember perception?” When I nodded miserably up at him, Dom pulled me closer, wrapping his other arm around me. “Honey, I don’t want you to leave. In fact, if you tried, I might have to lock you in the house and keep you laughing until you begged me for mercy. No. You need to be right where you’re at.”
“I don’t understand what you mean, then. You’re not in my personal space.”
“No? We spend nearly every evening together. Every time we see each other in the compound during the day we end up spending the rest of the day together. You seem to like my company as much as I like yours.”
“I do.” I reached out and touched his chest through his T-shirt, picking at the material. I realized then, I did that a lot. Picked at his shirt. It was a habit I had when I was nervous. About anything. If Dom was there, I was always within arm’s reach. I’d reach for his shirt and bunch my fingers in it. Dom didn’t seem to mind he was my anchor.
“Good. Do I frighten you?”
“What? No! Dom, no. I could never be afraid of you.”
“Are you absolutely sure, honey? I never want to frighten you. Ever. You understand me?”
I frowned, not sure where he was going with this. “I understand, but you don’t scare me. At all.” I huffed out a breath. “I mean, you intimidated me when I first met you, but only for a minute. You give off a safe vibe. At least to me.” Yeah, I was babbling again. “Sorry. I’m sure that’s way more than you wanted to know.”
“No, honey. That’s exactly what I wanted to know.” He reached out and stroked a finger down my cheek. “You remember the day we met?”
“Yeah. Some creepy guy ran his hand up my leg and you made him stop.”
He grinned, curling one finger under my chin while he brushed his thumb just under my bottom lip. “Yeah, I did. I also touched you without your permission afterward.”
“No, you didn’t. You just freed an aggravating strand of hair from my eyelash.”
“I still didn’t have permission to touch you. So I want to make absolutely certain you know you have a choice in what happens next.”
That was confusing. “What happens next?”
“Yeah. I want to kiss you. But I want you to know you don’t have to. You’ll still have a home. You’ll still have my protection. And you’ll always, always, have my friendship.”
My eyes widened and my belly did another one of those flips. Excitement. Anticipation. Dom wanted to kiss me?
“Kiss me like the man and woman who came out of the clubhouse the evening I first came here?”
For a moment, a look of confusion crossed his face while he thought back. Then he seemed to remember and grinned at me. “Yeah, baby. Maybe not exactly like that, but that’s the way I want to kiss you.” I opened my mouth to tell him that, no, that might not be the best idea I’d ever had. What came out was far simpler.
“Yes, please.”
Chapter Eight
Dominic
No. Nope. I didn’t just tell Annie I wanted to kiss her. And she didn’t just tell me yes. And I absolutely was not leaning close to follow through with that desire to kiss her.
Except I was.
Slowly, so she had time to pull back, I leaned forward until my lips brushed against hers in a silky glide.
Her response was hesitant at first, a feather-light testing of waters. Then, as if the last piece of a puzzle clicked into place, she melted into the kiss with a contented moan that sent a jolt of need straight to my cock. My heart pounded against my ribs like it wanted to break free. This kiss wasn’t just a kiss. It felt like a silent promise, a whisper of all the things I’d wanted my entire adult life but hadn’t acknowledged.
I slid my hand up to cradle her cheek gently, brushing my thumb over her baby soft skin. Her hands, those nervous little fingers that had picked at my shirt countless times before, now clung to my shoulders, holding her body close to me. This wasn’t the hungry kiss of the couple by the clubhouse. This was something… more. It was hope and starvation. Lust and admiration. She hadn’t told me everything she’d endured, but I knew she struggled with something in her past. It was there in her nightmares.
The kiss was soft and sweet but also fiercely determined. The thing was, I wasn’t sure which emotions were mine and which were hers. Her feelings were transparent, and during the last few weeks, I could tell she was interested in me. Which made me the worst kind of bastard because I wasn’t the type of man to settle down. I was too Goddamned old. Annie wasn’t, though.