Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
With his free arm, he pushes my tablet, notes, and the practice suture coil off the table.
My tablet lands with a clatter on the hard wood.
And I don’t even care.
I don’t fucking care.
He pushes me until the table hits the back of my thighs. “You said rough,” he mutters against my mouth, breath hot. “Tell me to stop if—”
“I won’t,” I say, and then I prove it by dragging his lower lip with my teeth until he curses.
He lifts me to the table and steps between my knees like it’s where he belongs. Hands under me, around me, everywhere at once. There’s nothing polite about the way he kisses me now. No restraint, no care. He tastes like bacon and musk and darkness.
I yank at his shirt. He helps, and the fabric hits the floor. His skin is warm under my palms, all muscle and succulent flesh.
“Tell me what you want,” he says, voice low.
“You,” I say. “Fast. I don’t want to think.”
“Copy.” He finds my mouth again, deeper this time, and he slides his hands down and grinds against me.
He’s hard. My breath starts coming in small, quick gulps.
He grips the edge of the table beside my thigh, the tendons cording in his forearm.
He’s as close to losing it as I am. I wrap my legs around his waist and pull. He groans.
I reach down, loosen my jeans. “Off,” I pant. “Clothes off.”
He pulls the jeans over my hips and down my legs. Then he pulls the T-shirt over my head and removes his own jeans.
Then his boxer briefs. My panties.
Until we’re naked. Naked and sweaty and ready.
He sets me on the table, gets between my legs, and thrusts inside me as he crushes his lips to mine. A moment later, I break the kiss.
“Harder,” I whisper, and the word feels dangerous and decadent.
And so fucking necessary.
He obeys without flinching, his hips driving, mouth hungry, hands firm. There’s nothing tender about this. I don’t want tender. I just want Henry. The clock in my head is counting down to Boulder, to the seminar, to reality so loud I want to drown it.
He drags his mouth down my throat, scrapes his teeth along my shoulders.
“More,” I tell him. “More.”
And I get more.
Fast and messy and exactly what I asked for. We move like we’re trying to bruise the past out of our skin. He’s strong.
Every push lights up a nerve ending I didn’t know I had. Every pull feels like a promise hammered into place. The table creaks with each thrust.
We may break it.
I don’t care.
His mouth comes back to mine right when I need it. The scrape of stubble. The taste of want. We’re not gentle. Not nice.
He pulls back, pinches both my nipples hard.
I squeal and pull him back to my mouth.
We kiss.
We kiss.
We kiss.
He thrusts. Pokes at me. Drills into me.
And as he pummels inside me, I rise, rise, rise…
Until—
I shatter.
I fucking shatter.
Convulsions shake me, and I claw at Henry’s chest, his shoulders, his back.
I continue to hold on to him because I need to feel him come apart for me.
“Fuck, Tabitha,” he grits out.
Thrusting, thrusting, thrusting…
Until—
“Fuck!” He pushes into me hard, jarring me.
The table shakes.
Henry shakes.
I shake.
His eyes are closed, his teeth clenched, and still he’s inside me, pulsing, pulsing, pulsing…
For a long beat, we just breathe. His forehead drops to my shoulder. I slide my hands up his back.
I don’t want to move. I don’t want to think. My heart is still sprinting. My legs shake. My brain tries again to serve up things that could ruin this—his trauma, mine, medical school, the seminar—but I force myself to keep them at bay.
Eventually he lifts his head and looks at me. “Damn.”
I nod. “You said it.”
On the rug, Zach lifts his head, gives us a canine look that seems to say finally, and thumps his tail.
I laugh, and the sound comes out shaky and new.
We end up on the couch because the table seems like it needs a minute. Still naked, I tuck my feet under me and pull a blanket across my lap. He sits at the other end like he’s trying not to crowd me but then pulls me in anyway. I let him.
“Tabitha,” he says quietly. “There’s one thing I have to—”
“Don’t ruin it,” I hear myself say.
He nods, swallows. “Okay.” He hugs me close.
For the first time in weeks, my head goes quiet enough to hear my own heartbeat without dread layering over it. The attack seems like a mountain I may actually be able to climb. The seminar stops looming like a cliff. The man Henry killed is still in the room—that will never change—but I think he believes he’ll be whole again.
“For the record,” he says in my ear, “if you ever tell me you want slow, I’m going to be very bad at pretending I don’t remember this.”