Total pages in book: 224
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
“Say it again.”
“Reid—”
“I’ll say it. We don’t owe each other. Ever. That’s not who we are. That’s not who I ever want us to be.”
This matters to him. Really matters and it makes me feel like we matter. It makes me fall harder for this man. He pushes to his feet and takes me with him, his hand under my hair on my neck as he drags my mouth to his. “And now, I vote we go to bed—together.”
And just like that, he owns me again.
Chapter forty-four
Carrie
Reid drags me close under his arm, and we walk back to the cottage. We don’t speak, a new intimacy between us that is comfortable in the silence. So much so that when we enter the cottage and head upstairs, we still don’t speak. We end up on opposite sides of the bed staring at each other, and what passes between us is intense, intimate, and like nothing I’ve ever experienced. We understand each other. We know each other in ways no one has known us. I don’t talk about my mother, but I have with him. He knows about my challenges with my father. He knows my weaknesses. He knows when and how I am strong. In turn, I know about his struggles with his father, his guilt with his mother, his intimacy issues. I know about his migraines. I know about Elijah. We know what we want and that’s the space out from in between us.
We undress and once we’re under the blankets, we’re instantly in the center of the bed, together, kissing, touching, and when he’s inside me, I’m not sure it’s fucking. It’s more than fucking. It’s tender and intense and it just feels different. We are starting to feel different again, the way we had when we’d kissed by the water between our apartments.
At some point Reid turns me, pulling my back to his chest and his hand is on my breast, his entire body wrapped around mine. I don’t know how having him behind me is more intimate, but it is. It’s like he’s sheltering me and protecting me in some unexplainable way. When we both tremble into release, we don’t move. In fact, he pulls me closer and murmurs my name before the heaviness of sleep and satisfaction wins. My lashes lower and sleep claims me.
I wake with Reid still wrapped around me and it’s a surreal moment, lessened only by the fact that I have to pee so badly I’m about to burst. I’ve never woken up in a man’s arms, which at my age is probably a bit screwed up, but I just—I don’t, or I didn’t, have anyone that made me want to wake up in their arms. Even when my ex stayed the night, I ended up with a pillow hugged to my chest, not him. Reid’s cellphone rings and he groans. “I’m going to ignore it,” he says, his hand sliding to my belly, the thick ridge of his erection sliding between my legs. “So I can tell you good morning properly.”
My hand covers his. “Take the call. Good morning has to come after I pee.”
He rolls me to my back and ignores his call and my bathroom request. “I don’t wake up with women in my bed, Carrie. I don’t do this.”
“I don’t either, Reid,” I say, my fingers curling on the thick stubble on his jaw. “What are we doing?” I ask yet again.
“Everything, baby, and I’m not sure that’s enough.” His cellphone rings again. “And apparently, everything includes answering my phone while you use the restroom.” He kisses my temple and then rolls off of me.
I roll in the opposite direction and grab my clothes on the way to the bathroom. I’m pretty sure Reid’s phone stops ringing again before he answers. I hurry to do my thing, and then pull on my clothes, with that word “everything” in my head. What does that even mean? What do I want it to mean? I don’t let myself get too in my head about it. Instead, I look at my wild hair and smudged makeup that I never took off, and decide I need my overnight bag, and most definitely the toothbrush inside.
I open the bathroom door to find Reid pulling on his pants, and since his back is to me, I have just enough time to appreciate the perfection of his backside.
“I’ll let you know in the next hour,” he says and whoever is on the line must be talking because he runs his hand through his hair and just listens, his shoulders bunched with obvious tension.
I walk to my suitcase that Reid set on the floor at some point, I really don’t remember when, and pull out my toiletries about the same time he says, “I’ll call you,” and disconnects.