Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“You’re beautiful,” I whisper.
He wants to say something. Probably more protests about how he’s not and how he’s tainted by the past, blah, blah, blah. I know it already, and I don’t agree. He can’t go on thinking like this, or he’s going to waste his whole life, which would be a real fucking shame. He has the potential to do so much good. This man never knew friendship or love until he met my brother. He never knew what it was like to have a family until he joined the military. He wasn’t wanted until he knew them. All the men and women he can’t talk about, at least for the most part.
Rick might have had other women love his body. It’s hard to think about that, but he’s old enough that duh, obviously. But I don’t think he’s ever let anyone inside. I want to do more than just run my fingers over the hard ridges of his abs. I want to do more than brush his nipple or stroke his shoulder. I want to touch all the parts of him that he’s very carefully kept locked away. I want him unleashed. I want the good and the bad. I want his soul and his spirit and his heart, even if it’s only temporary. I want him to know he’s not an orphan and not without family. Even though the man he loved like a brother is gone, I’m here, and right now, he belongs to me.
“I’m—”
I pinch his nipple, and it cuts off what he was going to say. I look up at him and find him frowning at me, but his eyes are shimmering with raw need.
“Aspen—” he groans.
I pinch it again and give it a good twist this time. “Bed. Now.”
“I don’t think you know what—”
“I know if I don’t have you inside me in the next five minutes, I’m probably going to be the one who strokes out.”
“Jesus, god, don’t say that,” he rasps.
“What? That I want you inside me?”
“We’re not doing that.”
Fuck. “Okay, I can work with that.” If I don’t…yeah, the internal combustible death thing. I’ll burn up like the tray of fries I once forgot in the oven for an hour and a half, and I didn’t know anything was wrong until I started smelling the char. They were probably legit about to combust when I finally got the smoking tray out of there, and my god, they were black little strips by that point.
I tangle my fingers in his hair—the length always surprises me—and drag his face down. I kiss him hard while I bump into him, backing him up.
I don’t know what he decides or if it’s just that he can’t take it anymore, but he finally grasps my waist and spins me around. He lifts me clean off the floor, and I do the first thing I think of, which is to climb him like he’s my new favorite tree.
We smack against the wall. I kiss him hard, brutally. Such that we both can’t breathe. He spins me and kisses me hard enough to drive my head into the wall. Well, no, not really. There isn’t a dent or anything. Just enough that it feels good. It feels like the wars he participated in are behind us, and there’s just this war between us.
A perfect war.
We battle it out, kissing and licking and fucking with our mouths all the way through the house. We bump into walls a few times, but he doesn’t ever waver. He would never drop me. He makes it to the stairs and climbs them. When he gets to the bend, I tear my mouth from his.
“When I grabbed your ass right here, did it leave marks? Are my fingerprints bruised into your skin?”
“No, they didn’t. They aren’t.”
“I could fix that,” I tease.
“Holy cantaloupe.”
His lips claim mine again, and he kisses me all the way into my room.
When we tumble to the bed, it’s so expensive that it catches us and somehow lets us sink in without making so much as a ripple or rebound. He’s all hardness above me, and he feels huge, while I feel soft and small.
I’m pretty much pinned down until Rick gets his hands under him, then his elbows. He’s got a knee between my legs, and I can’t help it. I grind against him, pressing my clit and all the aching, empty parts of me against the hardness of him, any hardness I can get.
The sounds he makes.
Oh my god, the noises.
It’s half animal, half man, raw and feral and delicious sounding.
He has his face turned so I can’t kiss him. The light from my open door paints him in the most gorgeous golden shadows. I take his earlobe between my teeth, but I’m gentle. I suckle it instead of biting down. This time, there’s a surprised gasp. I trail my tongue up, up the shell of his ear, and then down, down until I find his neck before I suckle the sensitive skin there too. He tastes good. He smells good. I love that he’s all around me.