Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
“The way to your heart?” I laugh as I open the plastic packaging and hand her a cupcake with pink icing. I take a blue one for myself.
“It definitely helps,” she says on a snort and takes a huge bite of her cupcake, painting the tip of her nose with a smear of pink.
“You have a little something…” I’m smiling at her like a loon when she meets my eyes. “Just right here,” I say as I reach out to wipe it away with my thumb.
But her next move surprises the hell out of me. With her eyes still locked on mine, she grabs my hand and slowly, intentionally, licks the icing off my finger.
“Fuck, Norah,” I breathe at the wordlessly erotic sight. And I punctuate that statement by leaning forward to kiss her.
Her lips part under mine, and I sink my hands into her hair and my tongue into her mouth.
She moans, and I take her back down to the blanket, my body half on top of hers, our cupcakes long forgotten.
We’re both looking for comfort—that’s undeniable—but I can tell by the grip of her fingers on my neck and the pounding of her heart echoing in my own chest that it’s more than that too.
This isn’t a mindless romp between two desperate people. This is a connection that’s been at war with the two of us since the moment we met.
She digs her teeth into her bottom lip, and I have the urge to run my tongue along the seam of her mouth.
She moves her hands to my shoulders, and both of my hands are on her hips. I cover her body entirely with my own, and she opens her legs, winding them around my hips and clenching her ankles together until her heels dig into the top of my ass.
I growl and roll my hips toward hers, my hard cock aching to feel her wrapped around me.
It all feels so good, so right.
She whimpers, and my hands find the hem of her pink shirt, lifting it to get a feel of skin.
When I pull back slightly, searching her eyes for permission, a swirl of steam wafts between us. The warmth of our breath, the heat of our skin, and the cool of night mixing together to make clouds.
“Norah?” My hands shake with need as I slide my hands back into her hair. “I want you.” It’s simple and to the point, but for me—for the me I am now, after the guy I used to be—it’s not enough. “Norah, I want to be inside you.”
“I want that too,” she says firmly.
My grip on her hips is strong as I lift her toward me and slam my mouth down on hers. Her hands grab at my face and my neck and dive into my hair as our kiss turns wild, burning and building with each tangle of our tongues.
I reach down with one hand to undo the buckle on my belt, and then her hands join in, ripping at the leather until it releases from the metal that holds it.
I kiss her neck and her chest and rub a hand over her breast as she arches into me, moaning loudly as I skim my other hand down her hip and into her pants to feel between her legs.
She’s wet and hot and smooth, and a fiery rod inserts itself in my spine. God, I need her so badly.
Frantic for more skin-to-skin contact, she grabs for the hem of her shirt and starts to lift it over her head, only to freeze when a flash of headlights passes over the house to our right.
Fuck. “Breezy is home,” I manage raggedly.
“Oh my God.” Norah groans, and her head falls to the blanket-covered ground with a thud. I know exactly how she feels.
Sad, anxious, and completely unsatisfied.
“Bennett, I’m running out of bookmarks,” she whispers as I help her cover up, and a quiet laugh finds its way out of my lungs.
Tell me about it, sweetheart.
Once we’re both dressed and finished cleaning up, I look up to Cassiopeia and pray for a good day tomorrow.
If all is to go well, we’re going to need cooperative friends and family, good weather, a good day for Summer, and if I press my luck, maybe I’ll get to see someone else’s skirt around her shoulders.
34
Norah
Tuesday, August 31st
“Norah, I mean this with the most love I can muster…but what in the fuck were you thinking?”
Josie’s hands shake, and her chest is a tie-dyed mess of mottled red. When I woke her up this morning to get her help with final touches for the “big wedding,” I kept one of the most obvious details to myself—Josie Ellis, you see, is the bride-to-be in this whole shindig.
As it turns out, a wedding is one of those events that’s hard to just “throw.” You need a bride and a groom and guests. I briefly considered having Bennett and me pretend to be the ones completing our nuptials, but the implications of a dying girl’s father getting married to a woman he just met pushed my moral envelope just a little too far.