Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
“Eve.” He tilted her head back and raked his open mouth up her jaw. “Christ. Worth the wait doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
They raged back into the kiss, but the storm was building to a category five now. Sirens were going off in the back of Eve’s mind, his forearm gathering her hips closer to his own, angling them while he claimed ownership of her mouth from above with hungry pants, and lord, oh lord, her thighs were so close to dropping open and inviting him to rub himself in the place where she got wetter by the second.
This was their first kiss, though.
Were they moving too fast or was this combustion inevitable?
“Madden,” she said, struggling to breathe.
“What do you need, Eve?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you?” He nipped at her mouth and she could feel the knowledge in his touch. Could see the memory of her dancing topless right there in his eyes. “Say the word and I’ll take you to the backyard. I’ll strip you naked and get started fucking the last four years out of my system. There’s no chance anyone will see us.” He fisted her hair, drawing it to one side so he could suck and bite the skin of her neck. “But someone might hear you begging me for more, though. Someone will know my gorgeous girl took her panties off to allow me a ride.”
That . . . taunt? Promise? Dip into her psyche? It made splotches of light bloom on the insides of her eyelids, the walls of her sex squeezing and releasing rhythmically, searching for him, but her hands moved first, ripping his T-shirt upward, off and over his head, revealing that sturdy chest with the cross tattoo in the center of his pecs. A smattering of hair. The ripest muscles she’d ever laid eyes on in real life.
A five-inch-long scar running down the left side of his abdomen.
Her own stomach flipped over in response.
“You want the possibility of being seen, being caught, watched, I’ll give you that. You trust me to do that?”
Trust didn’t come easy for Eve, if at all, but she trusted Madden with most things. With this. Exploring the part of her she’d denied satisfaction for a long time. And she didn’t really have a choice but to nod, tilt her head back, and let him suck marks onto her neck and throat, because all her fantasies had been with him.
“Out back, then?” he growled.
“I think so, yes.”
“You think so.” His jaw flexed. “If this is moving too fast, love . . .”
She didn’t have a single ounce of doubt that he could handle the delay of gratification like a man. “It’s moving very fast.”
“God, I know. Okay.” Madden pulled back, panting, his strong hands cradling her head. In her periphery, Eve could see the extended zipper of his jeans, the outrageous curve of his length straining inside the denim. How he could be so worked up and yet speak to her so gently was this man in a nutshell. A quiet storm. “Let’s just take a deep breath here.” His chest puffed up and down. “We’re not about to rush this.”
What followed was a moment very different from the urgency and madness of the kiss. A quiet calming of pulses and haywire breaths. A seeking of comfort. Madden kissed a path across Eve’s hairline, down her cheek, before sipping at her mouth.
“I can give you what you want. I wanted to prove that.” His thumb traced her jawline. “Have I?”
Her head nodded by itself. “Yes.”
A low sound of pride in his chest. “We’re settled, then?”
Dang, her lips were swollen. “Friends with fulfillment.”
“Uh-huh.” He dropped his forehead against hers, his energy growing a little frustrated. Or anxious, maybe. “I have to be back in New York tomorrow morning.” His eyes burned with promise. “But I’ll be back in three days to marry you.”
Holy shit, this was happening. Eve looked at him, then asked, “Why does that irritate you?”
Blue eyes searched hers. He replied, “It’s only the three days that irritates me. I’m afraid you’ll change your mind.”
“I don’t plan on it.”
The tick in his jaw said he wasn’t reassured in the slightest. And wow, the impulse to be late opening the club, to stay and do whatever she could to ease his mind, startled Eve. She couldn’t fall into the trap of making this relationship too . . . romantic. Too sweet.
That wasn’t her.
And that kind of starry-eyed romance wasn’t in the cards for them.
“Guess you’ll just have to wonder,” she murmured with a smile she hoped was mysterious, sliding out from beneath his shirtless body. “See you soon, Madden.”
As soon as her feet touched the ground and she stood, her liquefied knees gave out.
Madden caught her before she could drop like a stone, his chuckle ruffling the hair at the crown of her head. “Consider me reassured.”