Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
His hands splayed wide, stretching out over the entirety of my back, his front pressed close. I got the sense he could cover every inch of me at the same time.
Envelop and consume.
I breathed out a shaky breath as he studied me in the glittering rays of light that streaked in through the windows, evening slowly approaching and casting the air in pink, misty hues.
He pulled the strap of my bag over my head and set it aside, and I reached out with a trembling hand and let my fingertips play along the contours of his face. Over the harsh lines and defined edges. The man was carved like a blade. Hewn in severity and shorn in brutality.
My fingers drifted, brushing over the sharp angle of his brow and dancing over the stars tattooed at his hairline, dragging down his jaw before they were caressing over his full, plush lips that were the only thing that was soft about him.
Those lips barely moved with my touch, just soft puffs of air that felt like murmured kisses.
“Can’t fuckin’ wait to show you what it feels like to be touched by me. Can’t wait to adore this body. I’m going to explore every inch of you. Show you that bastard no longer has any control over you.”
Goosebumps lifted, and a gluttonous sound rolled through him as he leaned in and chased them up my neck.
“That sound good to you, Little Runner? You want me to show you what it’s like to have so much pleasure you won’t be able to think of anything else but me? Gonna write myself so fuckin’ deep.”
A tremble rolled through me.
An earthquake of need.
He groaned like he could feel the way my center throbbed. The way I wanted to melt into him and disappear.
“I want that,” I whispered, too turned on to be flustered or shy. “I want to feel everything.”
Experience it.
On my own desire, on my own volition.
Not because I’d been coerced or manipulated.
“I’ll give you everything you want and more than you’ve ever dared to imagine.”
I was right.
I was never going to survive this.
But I wanted it, anyway.
So, I murmured, “Show me.”
Begging him for his kiss.
For his hands and his touch.
For him to do me in.
I wanted to be wrecked. Destroyed. Rebuilt.
He obliged with a growl, taking my mouth in a possessive, mind-bending kiss.
One hand spread all the way across my back to yank me against the hard planes of his body, and the other gripped me by the base of my neck at my skull so he could angle me the direction he wanted me.
This kiss wasn’t careful the way the last had been.
This one was a ravaging.
A plundering.
His tongue stroking deep as I opened to him.
Need rolled up his throat and a whimper danced through mine, and I struggled to get closer, to rub myself against the hardness beneath his jeans that I could feel pressing at the thin material of my scrubs.
Normally, I would shrink and cower. Fold in on myself. Close my eyes and pretend I wasn’t there.
But I was just as famished as him.
Kissing and kissing him.
My hands rushed to touch him everywhere.
His back. His shoulders. His arms.
Raking down his chest and his abdomen.
“River.” I moaned it, this desperate sound that came from a place I didn’t know existed.
“I know, baby, I know. I’ve got—”
We both froze when the sound of the garage door whirring open echoed through the house.
“Shit,” River hissed as he broke the kiss. Panting, he dropped his forehead to mine. “That will be Raven and Nolan. I shot her a text and asked her to pick him up from daycare for me.”
I struggled to get my bearings.
To come back down from wherever River had lifted me.
I swallowed hard, and River picked me up from around the waist and set me on my feet just as car doors were slamming. One second later, the interior door busted open to the sound of Nolan’s voice carrying, “Hey, yo, Daddy-O! I’m here. Did you miss me?”
He came barreling around the corner and into the kitchen, and he skidded to a stop when he saw me. It took all of one beat for his confusion to flash to a beaming smile.
A smile that speared through me and made the haggard breaths I was breathing grow thick with affection. “Miss Charleigh?! What are you even doing here?”
“Oh, well, I…” I stammered it.
Brilliant.
I couldn’t even speak.
Then a rush of self-consciousness came barreling through when Raven rounded the corner.
On a gasp, she halted in her tracks, and her dark eyes widened in surprise as she took us in.
My flushed skin and mussed hair and swollen lips. Not to mention River who was a vibrating ball of energy beside me.
And well…just the fact that I was there. Because I’d denied anything was going on with her brother over the last two weeks like I was denying committing murder, and there I stood, pretty sure I was wearing his kiss like a brand.