Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
The sofa groans under us, springs creaking as I quicken, my rhythm harder, deeper, driven by her cries. Her nails rake my back, leaving trails of fire. Perhaps she is punishing me too. I’m lost in the heat, the friction, her tightness is a vice I can’t escape, and I don’t want to.
I angle deeper, hitting that spot that makes her arch desperately, her hips urging mine to take what it wants. Our mating is frantic, greedy, our bodies a clash of need. Her cries echo, my name becomes a chant on her lips, and it’s fuel, pushing me to the edge. I ram into her, relentless, the head of my cock merciless. The decadence of it—her wetness, her heat, her surrender—consuming me.
I fuck her like I will lose my mind if I ever stop, and she rocks her hips forward just as frenziedly to meet mine. Her cries sharpen, jagged and desperate, echoing off the bare walls as I thrust deeper, my cock buried in her heat, her tightness a relentless grip that pulls me to the edge.
She’s close, her body tensing, clenching, and I’m right there with her, my balls tight, the pressure blinding, but I hold on, savoring her unraveling. As her climax rises, her breaths come in gasps, her body becomes tight as an arch, and her thighs tremble against my sides.
Finally, she breaks, a keen, animal-like sound tearing from her throat, her release a shuddering surge, her sex clenching around me, hot and relentless, each pulse milking me, drawing me impossibly deeper. The sensations are too much… it shatters my hold on my own control, and my own release roars through me. It’s like a molten rush that blinds me and leaves my cock pulsing as I spill into her, thrust after thrust. Her name is a guttural growl ripped from my chest as my vision dissolves into white-hot static.
I collapse onto my elbows. Our gasping breaths are tangled. Her heartbeat is racing under my chest. Her body is as soft and pliant as chocolate on a hot day. I would have lain with her, but the sofa is brutal. Its springs must be biting into her. I find myself with an uncomfortable feeling of being fiercely protective, of not wanting her to ache even for a while. I summon what strength I have left and lift her up. Her arms are loose around my neck, her breath warm against my shoulder as I carry her in search of her bedroom.
The chaos is even worse upstairs—building materials fighting for space with junk, paint cans stacked like silent watchers. Her renovation is a dream that she’s chasing alone, and I cannot help but feel the first stirrings of real sympathy for her in my heart. Worry gnaws at me, telling me that she’s carrying too much, and it’s not right.
I head up the stairs to find her bedroom. Of course, it’s a single bed. I lay her down on the white duvet and gaze down at her. Her skin is still flushed and glowing, and her eyes are soft, pulling at me, a siren’s call I have to fight to resist. I want to climb into that narrow bed, to hold her and drown in her until the world fades, but this I am sure will be too much. It is clear now that I have an uncharted side, and I’m not sure I want to let it loose right now. Her taste, her heat, is still burning in my veins.
I lean down and kiss her forehead. Her skin is warm with a faint salt tang.
“Sleep well,” I murmur.
She smiles sleepily and closes her eyes. I force myself to turn away. After gathering my clothes and getting them back on, I slip out. The door clicks behind me as I step into the night, but her touch and the thought of her under me remain burning inside of me like a fire I can’t quench.
Chapter
Thirty-Five
LAUREN
The morning light seeps through the cottage’s crooked blinds, a pale, accusing glow that stabs at my eyelids. I’m sprawled naked across the bed, my body a map of aches—inner thighs bruised, hips tender, every muscle heavy with the goings on from last night.
Hugh’s hands are still on me, in memory—gripping, searing, unraveling me until I was nothing but heat and surrender. His mouth, hungry against my neck, my breasts, the way he thrust into me, deep and relentless, shattering me into fragments.
I can’t move, don’t want to. The exhaustion pinning me to the mattress. Suddenly Meredith’s voice in my head—he uses women like tissues, tosses them when he’s done. It was better than any dream, raw and overwhelming, his gray eyes burning into mine like I was everything, but now I’m terrified it was a lie, a game, and I’m drowning in the wreckage of my own weakness. My skin is marked by him.