Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 102167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
She huffs, rolling her eyes, but the way she shifts closer and the way her fingers trail along my bare stomach again, slow and teasing, tells me she’s not backing down.
“You’re reading way too much into this,” she argues, her voice silky as she leans in, pressing her body flush against mine.
Her lips hover dangerously close to my neck, and the heat from her bare skin radiates through me like an electrical current.
“I’m not a fair maiden of delicate disposition,” she continues, mocking an old-English accent like she’s in a damn Shakespearean play. “I’m a woman. A very sexual woman who just so happens to have avoided cashing in her V-card for entirely too long.”
Fuck. I swear, if anyone else were saying this to me, I’d already be taking off my pants.
But this is Avery.
And Avery is different.
She’s so close now that if I just tilted my chin forward, our lips would be touching. Her eyes dance with something flirtatious, something daring, something unmistakably Avery. They are a stark reminder of how her gaze looked during all of our almost-somethings of the past.
The way she’s looking at me right now is damn near lethal.
And her body? God help me.
Her legs look miles long, smooth and tanned from the island sun, with nothing but a cerulean-blue bikini bottom standing between me and a terrible decision.
“I won’t regret doing this with you,” she says slowly, her voice clear and seemingly lucid, despite the bourbon.
She’s sultry as she leans in farther, hands settling on my shoulders, her cashmere sweater gaping like a balloon away from her chest. The collar is all stretched out, making it impossible to avoid seeing her bare breasts and peaked nipples underneath.
I force my gaze to her face.
Big mistake.
Her lips are parted just enough, her breathing just a little shallow, and her gaze is locked on mine like she’s challenging me to move first.
“I’d regret doing it with some skeezeball, three-balled hump machine whose sweat smells like gym socks and decomposing skunk.” She shrugs. “But not you. We’re friends. I trust you. You’re safe.”
I’m safe. It’s a high compliment from a tough critic, and for the first time since she started trying to convince me, I’m actually considering if we could…maybe…make this work.
I don’t think it’s my dick talking, but to be fair, a lot of the blood supply normally finding its way to my brain is trapped in his head instead.
Without thinking, I move my hands to her legs, sliding over the soft skin of her thighs. The second I touch her, her smile grows, her eyes flickering with something victorious, wicked, knowing.
She straddles me, her thighs pressing against mine, and fuck, she feels so good.
My hands settle naturally at her hips, and she drapes her arms over my shoulders, crossing them lightly behind my neck.
I squeeze her hips, steadying her, steadying myself, but nothing about this feels steady.
It feels like standing at the edge of a fucking cliff, ready to jump without a bungee cord.
Her gaze is still locked with mine and her face is soft, and I find myself trapped in the firelit twinkle of her perfectly green-brown eyes. “Come on, Henny. The two of us together? You know it’ll be good.”
I laugh, but it comes out hoarse, strained. Good? Yeah. Between my experience and her raw, sexual charisma, it would be cataclysmic.
Which is exactly the issue.
“I’m sure it would be.”
“So…” She coyly digs her teeth into her bottom lip. “What’s the problem?”
“The same problem I told you before and you willfully ignored,” I murmur, my fingers tightening on her waist. “Everything about this is complicated—the people, the situation…the alcohol swimming in your bloodstream.”
She licks her lips with just the tip of her pink tongue, and my eyes immediately drop to her plush mouth.
“Okay,” she says slowly, her voice dropping an octave until it sounds smooth like honey. “I’ll give you that. And if this were a first-time encounter, I’d even agree with it. But this isn’t new—this chemistry between the two of us…”
She leans in, her lips nearly brushing mine, and fuck, I almost stop breathing.
“We’ve walked these streets before, Henny,” she whispers directly into my ear. “Remember Allure?”
I nod, my eyes narrowing slightly while my fingertips flex into the skin of her hips. “Of course I do. I remember you kissing me, telling me you kiss everyone, and then kissing some football player. You didn’t choose me because I was safe. I was just a toy in the playpen.”
“Fine.” She rolls her eyes but doesn’t pull away. “What about Halloween, then? You can’t say that about that night, and you know it.”
I tense.
She’s right. That’s a different story. Halloween four years ago, at her parents’ annual costume bash, when Beau ditched me, Ronnie, and Mav for June—which none of us knew at the time—something happened between us.