Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 93463 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93463 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
“I want to kiss you, Zoya,” he says, and I remember the night months ago when he saved me from an unwanted kiss.
This is very, very different.
I want to ask him to say my name again.
My heart stumbles in my chest.
Of course I want to kiss him… more than anything. But the words catch in my throat.
“Well,” I manage to say with a shaky laugh, “that’s convenient. Because I would actually like to kiss you too.”
God, how lame am I?
My cheeks flush. I feel embarrassed, like a girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing.
Because I really don’t. I’ve become complacent with our Thursday night chat sessions, comfortable around this much-older, forbidden man, that I’ve always forgotten how naive and inexperienced I am.
I swallow the lump in my throat.
I want him. I want this, so damn bad.
“Come here,” he murmurs. My heart beats impossibly faster, my body instinctively responding to his command.
What would it be like if I were fully under his command? My insides whir with excitement and nerves.
He pulls me a little closer. Not roughly. Gently, like I’m something precious he doesn’t want to break.
He smells like wind and danger and salt. Like something primal. And under that? Warmth. Comfort. Need.
“I’ve never been kissed,” I whisper. My voice trembles. I wish it didn’t.
He stiffens slightly and then tips my chin up to meet his gaze, rough fingers under the thin, vulnerable skin. “Never?”
I shake my head. “I told you I’ve been sheltered, remember?”
“Aye, lass,” he says quietly. His voice drops, rough with feeling. “My fucking god. I can’t believe I have the privilege of being your first. Come here.”
My heart squeezes. Thumps. Warmth spreads across my chest and dips lower.
I love the way he talks. The way every word feels like a promise.
And I know, before his lips even touch mine, that this is going to be beautiful. Memorable.
Everything I’ve ever wanted.
“I said come here,” he says again, even softer.
I step toward him, incapable of anything but obeying him.
“When a man kisses a woman he cares for,” he murmurs, “he needs to make her feel safe.”
His hand brushes the hair out of my eyes.
“It’s not just about taking, you know. That’s the mistake men make. They take and they take, but this?” His fingers trail down the side of my face. “This is about giving too.”
I swallow and nod. I don’t trust my voice.
Just kiss me already.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says. “So fucking beautiful.” He shakes his head. “Got a flat here outside of Moscow, you know. So I could show every week.”
He did?
He blows out a breath and holds my gaze. My nerves and fears meld together. A man can’t seduce a woman for six months, right? If he were trying to take advantage of me, trying to somehow use me, wouldn’t he have already played his hand?
“Zoya. When I close my eyes, you’re the first thing I see. When I open them, there y’are again.”
I swallow hard. “Okay,” I say, breathless.
He chuckles softly. I love that sound. My cheeks heat.
He’s Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome in the flesh. And all mine, if only for a moment.
“I’ll tell you what to do,” he says. “Close your eyes, if you want to.”
I look at him, wanting to remember every second. I want to burn the image into my mind.
But I close my eyes.
I tip my head back and feel his breath against my lips.
And then, finally, finally, his mouth meets mine.
It’s electric.
A shock of something pure and wild and aching floods me, lightning in my veins.
I stifle a moan and grip his hips.
And I kiss him back.
His hands settle on my hips like he owns them, with a branding touch that sends fire straight to my core, like he's been waiting his entire life just for the chance to touch me properly. There's no hesitancy in the way he holds me, no gentleness. Just possession.
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. The kiss deepens until it steals the air from my lungs and the thoughts from my head.
I love the feel of his fingers digging into my hips, grounding me. I love the heat of his mouth on mine, the way our breaths mingle like we’ve been doing this forever.
I’ve wanted him. God, I’ve needed him. I’ve fantasized about him while lying beneath my sheets in the dark, desperate and aching, touching myself as I pictured exactly this, just a kiss. But this is no gentle dream. This is wildfire and hunger, coiled so tight in my gut it explodes through me like a dam breaking.
And then he lifts me. Just lifts me like I weigh nothing, and my legs wrap around his waist on instinct. One hand cradles the back of my head, protective and sure, and he shifts until his back hits the brick wall with a thud that reverberates through both of us.