Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
He stops just a breath away.
Close enough that I catch the steady beat of his pulse in his throat. Close enough that the warmth rolling off him wraps around me before his hands ever do. One tiny shift, one careless inhale, one impossible ounce of courage from either of us would erase the last sliver of space between us.
Eight days of pretending.
Eight days of restraint.
Eight days spent building walls that suddenly feel paper thin.
“I need you to be sure,” he says. His voice is low. Not the rough, wrecked quality it had during the first kiss. Calmer. More controlled. Like he’s holding the volume down because he doesn’t trust what happens if he lets it rise. “Because in six hours I’m walking into a building to get your brother out of a cell, and your brother is my best friend, and if we do this it changes everything between all three of us. Not just tonight. After.”
“I know.”
“If Poe finds out…”
“Nothing that happens between us makes you less loyal to him. It makes you something else to me. Both things can exist at the same time.”
He lifts his hand. The same gesture from the kiss. Not to my face. To the side of my neck. His fingers find the pulse point and this time I know he can feel the speed of it because his breath catches slightly when the contact registers what my heart is doing.
“Tell me to stop,” he says. The same words from the first kiss. But the voice is different. That kiss was a collapse. This is a choice.
I take the front of his shirt in both fists and pull him the last twelve inches.
His mouth finds mine and the contact isn’t like the first kiss. That one was desperate and sudden and flavored with the surprise of a wall coming down. This is different. This is the second time, and the second time is slower only for a moment, only for the breath it takes for both of us to register that we’re choosing this, actively, with full knowledge of the cost and the timing and the six hours ticking away and the brother in the cell and the crew in the facility and every single reason we have not to do this right now.
We choose it anyway.
The slowness burns off fast. His hand slides from my neck into my hair and his other arm wraps around my waist and yanks me hard against him. The contact is total. Chest to chest. Hip to hip. The heat of his body through the thin thermal shirt is so intense it feels like standing too close to a fire I walked into on purpose.
I pull at his shirt. Not carefully. Roughly. The fabric bunches in my fists and I use it as leverage to press harder against him. He makes a low, broken sound against my mouth that I’ve never heard from him before. Desperate. Needy. Filthy with want.
“Fuck,” he mutters against my lips. “I’ve wanted this for so goddamn long. Wanted you. Wanted to get my hands on you and my mouth on you and feel every inch of this body I’ve been starving for.”
We hit the wall. My back against the cold metal of the storage unit, his body pinning me there hard. His hands are in my hair and on my waist and then sliding under the hoodie, rough and hungry. His mouth moves from my lips to my jaw to the side of my neck where my pulse is racing so hard it feels like it might break through the skin.
“Enley.” My name in his mouth, spoken against my throat, the vibration of his voice traveling through me like a current. “You have no idea how many times I’ve thought about this. Jerked off to this. About bending you over something and making you come so hard you forget every reason we weren’t supposed to do this.”
His words turn me on. The thought of him relieving himself to thoughts of me nearly undo me. I yank the hoodie over my head and drop it. The thermal base layer underneath is thin and I hear his breathing change the second he sees me in it. He’s seen me in this same layer for days. But context changes everything. Context is the difference between a base layer worn for warmth and a base layer worn by a woman who just pulled off the only barrier between his hands and her skin.
His hands find the hem. His fingers slide under the fabric and touch my bare waist and the contact of his hot skin on mine sends a shock through my system so sharp that my knees buckle. He catches me. Obviously he catches me. I think this man will always catch me when I fall.
“Jesus,” he breathes, voice rough and ragged. “You’re so fucking soft. I knew you would be. I’ve been dying to get my hands under these clothes and feel you like this.”