Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 131271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 656(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 656(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Jesus.
Her hand moves from my cheek to the back of my neck, pressing me deeper against her as she opens her lips, and our tongues touch. Electricity pulses between us, flooding me with warmth.
I want more. So much more.
Pressure gathers inside me, turning me liquid in some places and rock-hard in others. I grasp the bar, searching for stability when the world is spinning, and the floor is racked with tremors. I need more pressure between our bodies, skin on skin, sweat, and breath, tongues and tastes, and fucking. So much fucking.
I step closer, gripping her hip and spreading her legs around me. She’s still perched on the stool, but the way we grasp each other, it’s like I’m holding her up. I could do that. Hold her, fuck her against the wall with just my cock keeping her suspended. The filthy thoughts that barrel through my mind force another rumbling groan from my throat, and she shivers in my arms. We’re not just electric; we’re an unexploded bomb, a puck skimming down the ice, meeting no defense to slide right into the center of the goal. We’re perfection.
“Get a room!” someone hollers, breaking through the haze of the moment. Riley pulls back, her liquid chocolate eyes locking onto mine, her puffy, glossy, just-been-kissed lips parting as if she’s about to say something. Instead, she blinks a few times, dazed, while I stand there panting, trying—and failing—to recenter myself.
Meanwhile, my dick has announced his presence in the middle of a bar. Fantastic.
“Fuck,” I murmur. “That was…”
“We shouldn’t have…” Riley gasps, her eyes wide.
“That was hot as fuck,” I finish, ignoring her regret.
“You’re my…”
I kiss her again, hard, and fierce, cutting off any doubt about what I am to her. At this moment, I know exactly what I want—for the first time in my life, it’s crystal clear. I want to take Riley to bed, peel back every layer and make her scream my name until there’s no question who she belongs to.
With her, there is no hesitation, no fear. I’m not worried she’s pining for my brothers or settling for less. She had her chances with Jacob and Shawn and chose to be here with me.
She’s meant for me.
Riley isn’t like the puck bunnies who chase players around, looking for bragging rights or a free ride. She’s sharp, funny, and effortlessly beautiful in that girl-next-door way that drives me out of my mind. Every curve, every laugh, every look she gives me makes my blood hum, my pulse pound.
She kisses me back, her lips soft but unrelenting, pouring every ounce of heat into me until the world fades. The doubts, the reasons why this might not work, Jacob’s insistence that we keep her at arm’s length, all dissolve in this moment’s rush. It’s just Riley and me, caught in a wild, unstoppable pull that I know I’ll never be able to resist.
When my hard length presses against her core, she groans, and I grunt, and the world comes back into focus.
I can’t fuck her on this stool in this bar with half the campus as witnesses, but if we keep kissing, that’s where this is going, for me at least.
“You want to get out of here?” I ask.
With flushed cheeks, she blinks like she’s coming around from an out-of-body experience.
Say yes. Fucking say yes.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” Okay is good enough.
8
RILEY
Oh, my god. I kissed Hayes Drayton.
I kissed my stepbrother. Well, technically, he kissed me.
I know he’ll deny that’s what we are to each other. It was in the past and for a short period, but that doesn’t make it any less fresh. I remember his bony teenage body and his messy hair. I remember his filthy sneakers and how he looked in slightly outgrown superhero pajamas. He remembers me at a vulnerable time when I was lost about who I was and where I was going. When I was still weighed down by sadness and a need for affection and validation. Those memories are tender and secret, which is what makes this so strange.
But I don’t feel vulnerable as I follow Hayes out of the bar, catching Forester and his goons watching us as we leave. It’s not just Hayes’ tallness that makes me feel protected or his huge, looming, muscular body. It’s his gentleness and reliability. It’s his consideration of me and his interest in my dreams.
For all his brother’s flaws, Hayes has grown into a good man.
When we’re outside, he takes my hand. “Did you drive?”
“I walked.”
“Shit.” He shakes his head. “I should have collected you. I don’t like the idea of you wandering around town on your own.”
“I’m a big girl,” I say, smiling on one side of my mouth.
The air is cool, but my cheeks are still hot from all the kissing. We’re on the sidewalk, but his attention is still on my mouth. He must have kissed all the gloss from my lips already, and he ducks his head, pressing his lips against mine again, and I’m spinning like I was in the bar, my mind lost to sensation and the intensity that’s too big for a simple kiss.