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)
We move at the same time—me toward the table, him toward the door—and collide in the middle. Not hard. Just enough. His hand lands on my hip to steady me. My breath catches. He doesn’t take advantage. He just steadies me and then lets go.
He fumbles with his phone, typing. A few dings of texts go back and forth.
“Aunt Melanie at two tomorrow,” he says casually, as if telling me this is as normal as the sun shining.
Another reminder that tomorrow, he’ll be back on the Slope, and I’ll be in Boulder.
“That’s good,” I say.
He nods. “Thought I’d start the fight before I talked myself out of it.”
“Time’s running out,” I whisper. “For us.”
He tightens his hand on mine. “Then we use what we’ve got.”
I don’t know who moves first. Maybe we both do. We turn toward each other at the same time, the whole world narrowing to the half inch between us.
The clock has started.
Thirty-Six
Henry
I swoop Tabitha into my arms and carry her to the blankets on the floor by the hearth.
Our bed for the last two nights.
Our bed…
I’m still naked, and I get rid of her clothes in record time.
She grabs my face, yanks me down, and kisses me.
The kiss is not sweet and not patient. It’s a collision of teeth, breath, tongues. She shoves both hands into my hair and drags me closer.
We stumble down onto the blankets together, a tangle of knees and shins and elbows.
I roll and she rolls with me, ending up above me, hair falling around our faces like a curtain. We’re both breathing too hard already. I slide my hands up the length of her back. She arches into it, mouth open, breath hot on my cheek.
“Henry…” she says, sliding one hand over my hard dick.
She sits back for half a breath, flushed in the afternoon light, and the sight is like looking at a fallen angel.
“Come here,” I say.
She does.
The hard wood beneath the blanket bites my shoulder blades. I don’t remember when my hands got this greedy, but they’re everywhere—her shoulders, her ribs, her lower back, the nape of her neck.
She takes my wrist and drags my hand up, sets my palm flat over her heart like she’s proving something. It’s racing. Mine matches it, thudding hard against my chest.
“Feel that?” she whispers, eyes shining. “Make it louder.”
Everything in me answers yes. I flip us and the blankets go with us, sliding and snarling around our legs. The hearthstone is cool against my palm when I brace there for balance. She drags me down by the back of my neck and kisses me like it’s our first time.
My body knows how.
We don’t say the serious words. We don’t say any words bigger than names and please and yes. Mostly we make sound. Heavy breaths sucked in, moans, groans, and that one “fuck” she says when I thrust into her.
God, her pussy…
So tight. So perfect.
I drop my head to her shoulder and bite into her flesh, not gently.
She gasps and then groans.
Heat builds. She scrapes her nails over my back, my arms. It’s pleasure-pain at its finest, and I want more, more, more…
I plunge into her, again, again, again…
“So good…” she breathes.
The cadence we find is ugly and true, and it’s exactly what I want. What I need.
I’m fast and fierce and not careful. The room blurs around the edges. Our breathing is ragged.
“Don’t stop,” she says, her voice wrecked. “Don’t—”
She doesn’t finish, doesn’t need to.
I answer by giving her exactly what we both want.
More. Faster.
If anyone saw us, they’d think we were fighting.
Maybe we are. Fighting the clock, the door, the daylight.
Fighting the part of me that wants to make a home in her body. Fighting the part of her that still wakes at a sound that isn’t there.
The blankets slide and bunch. I want to mark the floor with this. I want to mark the air. Mostly I want to mark her.
She pulls me down by my face and kisses me hard enough to hurt.
I open for it. A tear slicks the corner of her mouth—it might be sweat, might be anything—and I catch it with my tongue. She makes a small sound that I feel more than hear, and then something in her lets go.
I feel it in the wisp of her breath, the way her body clenches and climbs. I’m right there with her, the bottom dropping out from under me.
I thrust for the last time, sliding so far inside her as I release.
I empty myself. Give her all that’s mine to give.
Then…
Quiet.
Quiet except for our rapid panting. Quiet except for something that sounds like a quiet sob coming from her.
I don’t look. I can’t.
She sniffs it back.
Quiet except for Zach’s tail thumping.
She sags back into the blankets, hair spread, eyes closed. I lower myself without crushing her and end up half on, half beside her, my chest heaving, my mouth against the hot line of her throat.