Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 146289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 731(@200wpm)___ 585(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 731(@200wpm)___ 585(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Except the part of me that is here today is not the part of me that knows things. The part of me that is here today is dumb and reckless and impulsive, and wants what it wants, and is tired of trying to be perfect and do everything right and still failing at it anyway.
“I want you,” I declare. It comes out easily, my voice surprisingly steady.
And there it is. The truth, for better or for worse. And even though I feel incredibly vulnerable admitting this in front of him, I square my shoulders and stay firm.
He closes his eyes.
Only for a second. His head tips back slightly, his throat moves. When he opens his eyes again, the blue in them has gone so vivid that I find myself trying to figure out what color I would use to paint them. Forget-me-not blue. Manganese blue. The blue at the bottom of a flame.
Or maybe the color doesn’t even exist in this world.
Alasdair blue.
“Aye,” he replies, very quietly. “All right then.”
Then he steps forward and he kisses me.
The kiss is slow at first. One hand to my jaw, the other to my waist. He comes down to my mouth without rushing, as if he had promised himself to take it one second at a time. The press of his lips against mine is flush and full and soft, a gentleness that gradually changes, becoming something harder and hungrier, and by the time his tongue sweeps across mine, I’m making a pathetic whimper against his mouth, my knees officially growing weak.
He swallows the sound, and the kiss deepens.
His hand at my jaw slides into my hair. His hand at my waist slides around to the small of my back. He turns us as he kisses me, slow at first, and then faster, and the next thing I know, my back is against the pale white trunk of a birch on the side of the road, and his body is against mine, and his kiss has become an animal of its own.
“Christ,” he swears into my mouth. “Christ, Iris.”
“Don’t stop,” I plead, suddenly struck by some unreasonable fear that he might think this is a bad idea, because I suppose someone has to.
“I’m not going to stop.”
He kisses me harder as if to reassure me. His hand comes up to my throat, just a little pressure there, just a wee hand necklace right out of the gate. Then his thumb under is my jaw, and he’s tilting my face the way he wants it for the kiss, and I’m letting him.
I think I’ll let this man do absolutely anything to me.
His mouth leaves mine and goes to my throat.
“You wore a skirt.”
“I did.”
“Was that for me?”
“Yes.” I breathe hoarsely. “I thought you’d want me to.”
He laughs against my neck, the sound rough.
“Aye, lass. I want it.”
His hand has come down to my hip. He’s gathering the fabric of the skirt up slowly, an inch at a time, his palm hot through it, the friction warm even through the wool socks where his other hand has dropped to behind my knee. The bark of the birch is rough through my cardigan, but all I can really feel is his other hand at the back of my neck, his thumb at the soft place behind my ear, the slow steady pressure of his mouth working its way down to my collarbone.
I feel like I’m being devoured on the spot, every single nerve singing up and down my body.
The skirt is up over my hips now, and oh, god. Part of me thinks this is moving too fast, that I’m too revirginized, too sheltered overall, to let him dive right into it. But I want it fast. I want him diving in. I want it all, and I want it now.
He slides his hand up the bare inside of my thigh, knuckles brushing lightly against me where I’m very newly bare.
And sensitive, holy Jesus.
Alasdair pauses, his hand pressing against me. He goes very still; his mouth comes off my throat.
He knows.
He pulls back an inch and looks down at the gathered fabric of the skirt where his hand is exploring under, and then he looks at me.
“You’ve got nothing on under here,” he says gruffly.
He closes his eyes again, breathing out through his nose. His hand has not moved from the inside of my thigh.
“Do you know,” he whispers, “what you have done to me?”
“Show me then,” I say. I’m a huge proponent of show not tell.
And at that, a sound comes out of him from deep inside, something guttural, primal. He kisses me again, harder, nearly bruising, and his hand on my thigh moves up. His fingers find me, and I’m gasping.
“Christ, Iris. You’re so very wet.”
“I walked here thinking about this,” I manage to say through a gasp, the feeling of his cool fingers against my warm, bare flesh close to sending me over the edge already.