Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
The words hung between us like an ax hanging over the invisible thread connecting us. I held my breath, waiting for the inevitable fall, the inevitable severing of our tumultuous but extraordinary bond.
Thirty-One
WALKER
I studied her face, every aspect. Every curve and line. The thought of never getting to look at her like this, to lie with her, to be inside her … I couldn’t deny the panic it induced.
Just like I couldn’t deny how jealous I’d been when Sloane gave her number to that arsehole at school. How possessive. She hadn’t been wrong about my territorialism or the satisfaction I’d felt as she came around me. I was who she wanted, who she needed.
But—and as much as it scared the shit out of me—I realized I needed her too.
The past four weeks of staying away from her had been the biggest test of self-control I’d ever faced. Only guilt at having fucked up in protecting her and Callie from the situation with Andros had stayed the urge to reach for her. But Rich had helped me understand that my fear of failing her had come from another place, another time. I was still processing his theory even as Sloane gave her number to that prick. It came to me, crystal clear in that moment. I knew Sloane didn’t see me as a failure. But if I lost her to someone else, I would have failed us both.
Fuck.
I was not a stupid man.
I knew I’d never felt about any woman the way I felt about Sloane Harrow.
It wasn’t merely sex.
Now I doubted it ever had been.
At the sight of the disappointment lighting her eyes, I reached out to caress her cheek. “It isn’t casual between us,” I agreed.
Sloane tensed in surprise, her lips parting with the shock of my admission.
My lips twitched at how fucking cute she was, but I needed her to understand something. “I’ve never been in a relationship, Sloane. I don’t know if I know how to be in one. But if it’s enough for you to know I want to try, then stay with me.”
Emotion glittered in her eyes. “We’re dating, then? For real?”
I swallowed my fear and nodded.
At the grin she tried to bite back, I pulled her to me, kissing the smile from her mouth. She climbed over me, her soft, warm body lying atop mine as we kissed until I was drowning in the feel and scent of this woman. As she moved over me, taking control of the kiss, her hands stroking and searching and learning every inch of me, I let her do with me what she wanted. Usually, I needed to be in control when I was with a woman, mostly so I could decide when we were done. So I didn’t have to be callous or cruel if a woman tried to take us to a place of intimacy I didn’t want to go.
But as Sloane scattered soft kisses across my body, taking her time at each scar as if she could kiss the old wounds better, I enjoyed it. Any attention she gave me, I was taking it. And when she took my dick in her mouth and tormented me as I had tormented her earlier, I fucking loved every second. I watched her, my fingers threading through the silk of her hair, so turned on by the sight of her mouth wrapped around me, I felt like a bloody teenager.
She was young and beautiful and had her whole life ahead of her.
I was thirty-eight years old, set in my ways, and I didn’t know if I could give her the future she and Callie deserved.
Maybe I was a selfish bastard for not giving her up, but I could live with that if it meant she was mine. She looked up from beneath her lashes as she sucked hard, and our eyes met at the same moment sensation skated down my spine.
“I’m going to come,” I warned her.
But she didn’t let go.
Sloane made me give it all to her.
She demanded I relinquish every inch of my control.
And for her, I did. I would.
Thirty-Two
WALKER
The lone bagpiper was in full Highland dress, in kilt and piper’s plaid and all, while he played “Flower of Scotland” on his pipes. A crowd had gathered around him on the corner of Princes Street and Waverley Bridge. Princes Street Gardens plummeted behind him in a sprawl of faded greens and rusted autumn leaves, while Edinburgh Castle rose over the city beyond that. Callie bobbed on her feet between me and Sloane. “I can’t see!” she complained over the mournful sound.
Sloane ducked her head this way and that, trying to find a way closer to the piper, but he was surrounded. It was one of those days. Some days, the lone piper was passed by, people too busy with their lives to stop and listen other than to throw a coin his way. Other days, the tourists descended around him like a barrier.