Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
He presses his fingers to my face, clearly getting impatient with me and my ramblings. “The only thing she did right in this life was makin’ you and then givin’ you that name, yeah? The only fuckin’ thing. She didn’t deserve your love when she was alive and she don’t deserve it now when she’s dead, you understand?”
I nod, my eyes stinging. “Yes.”
I do. Along with being brave, he somehow taught me that too. That I’m worth protecting. I’m worth saving. I want him to know that he’s worth protecting too. Worth loving. Because I already do.
“I’m leaving,” I blurt out.
His frame tightens, his features going hard. “I know.”
My fingers twist in his shirt. “In one week.”
Something flickers through his features, quick like lightning, that I have no hope of understanding. “Yeah.”
“I don’t want—”
He squeezes my cheeks to shut me up. “No.”
“But I’m going to m—”
“Fuck no.”
I go up on my tiptoes and in his face. “You can’t stop me from saying it.”
He fists my hair. “I can.”
I pull at his T-shirt. “You can’t stop me from feeling it either.”
His nostrils flare with anger and he snaps, “I can and I will. The only thing you need to feel right now is how you’ll be free in a week. How you’ll be goin’ away, doin’ this beautiful thing you wanted to do. How you’ll help people. Save women from men like me and your daddy who make this world a shitty place.” He fists my hair harder, pulling my head back. “The only thing you need to remember is that you’re going to live your life. That nothin’ they did to you, nothin’ I did, mattered in the end. Because you’re beautiful and brave and so fuckin’ stunning you take my breath away. Do you understand?”
My breaths are all choppy now, my heart a mess. In fact, I’m worse than I’ve been before. All day, I’ve been crippled with a kind of restlessness I’ve never felt before, and now he’s made it even worse with his sweet, infuriating words. So much so that I don’t know what else to do but smack him. Scratch his neck and punch his chest. I don’t know what else to do but rain my fists down on his mountain-like body and take my frustration out on him while screaming, “You make it so h-hard. God, you make everything so hard, Arsen. It’s so h-hard to hate you but I should hate you. I should. You’re the worst man I-I’ve ever met. You’re bossy and controlling and dominating. And it’s always your way or the highway and God, you make m-me so angry. You stupid, asshole cowboy. I wish—”
And just like that he’s swallowing my words with his mouth.
He’s kissing me so hard and so deep that it feels like my head is spinning. My entire body is spinning, and I have no choice but to hold on to him and kiss him back if I want to find my balance. I have no choice but to climb his body like the mountain he always feels like, strong and large and so steadfast, but also rocky and treacherous. I wrap my legs around his slim waist and wind my arms around his neck as I kiss, kiss, kiss him.
And as he kisses me back, he takes me to our bed.
The bed where I gave him my virginity, and as soft as that bed is—and it is soft—and as poetic as it would be to do this here, I still push him away with my hand on his shoulder. I still break our kiss and whisper against his mouth, “Not here.”
Panting, he frowns too. “What?”
“M-mirror.”
Our chests are clashing together as if fighting with each other. I bet our hearts are pounding in a way that could be called a war too. Drumming against our rib cages in a violent beat. Our blood could be kerosene, and this thing between us could be the match that lights everything on fire.
Him, me, this world.
“I want to see,” I whisper when all he does is stare down at me with fiery eyes.
I’ve never asked this of him before.
He’s the one who always initiates sex in front of the floor-length mirror that he put in himself just like the bathtub. The first time he insisted on having sex in front of it, I kept my eyes closed the whole time. I wasn’t going to see all my thick curves jiggling and shaking with his deep, pounding thrusts. He let me, but then to punish me, he laid me down in front of it while pointing out all the places on my body that are his favorite.
My overflowing tits that are so heavy they sag to the side while I’m lying down. This little place on my waist that he said calls to him in a way that makes him want to sink his teeth into it. My soft tummy with a slight bulge that also makes him want to take a bite off, especially the area around my belly button. My hips, all cushiony and plump, that he said he loves to grab while taking me from behind. He called them handlebars that he could use to go to town on my college girl snatch. Before moving down to my thighs that he said make him dream of soft, fragile things full of sweet cream. Followed by my thick ass that he said makes him come just at the thought of it shaking. In fact, he deliberately fucks me hard so he can watch it shake and jiggle with the power of his thrusts.