Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
He was barely holding onto control.
And somehow, that was possibly the hottest thing I had ever seen.
"There you go," he said, sensing the shift and taking advantage of it, his hand leaving my jaw as his other hand yanked so hard that I had no choice but to move backward to ease the delicious pain/pleasure sting. I realized as soon as my hands were flat on the mattress, our bodies more disconnected, that that was his intention as his free hand moved out, cupping my breast for a second before pinching the nipple and moving down my belly to work my clit.
Minutes.
He proved me wrong in a few incredibly short minutes.
My walls tightened as I whimpered.
"That's it," he growled, yanking my hair harder, fucking me faster, working my clit in more firm circles.
And I freaking... shattered.
It was the only way to describe the orgasm that seemed to start where our bodies met and exploded outward until it took over every part of me, until I was nothing but fragments in the aftermath.
I would have collapsed, convinced in doing so, I would literally splinter apart at impact, but Lazarus' hand in my hair held me upward as he slammed deep and cursed out my name, a tremble moving through his body as he came.
He released my hair then and I fell onto his chest, letting out a choked sound that sounded oddly similar to a cry as his hands wrapped me up, holding me so tight that, were I even capable of breathing, I wouldn't have been able to.
"I've been thinking about this since pretty much the first fucking night- mess or not," he said, arms loosening so his hands could trace gently over the skin of my back and behind. "Not one fucking situation I could come up with was even half as good as that was," he told me, easily, no hesitation, no worry about being too forthcoming.
I felt my heart squeeze at that and realized maybe for the first time exactly how much trouble I was in.
Because he was in.
He was under the walls and shields I put around myself.
He had proven himself to be good- bone deep good. The kind of guy who could see your potential even as you were throwing up and shaking and sweating and miserable. He was the kind of guy who didn't see all my dark and twisted and screwed up and think it made me ugly. Instead, he thought it made me interesting.
Find a man who buys the half-dilapidated fixer-upper, my mother told me one of those nights when her body was failing her, when her airway was making it hard to breathe, let alone speak, and not the guy who buys the brand new model. The guy who can see potential and is willing to roll up his sleeves and get to work and make it the best it can possibly be, who will love discovering all the hidden gems hidden inside, all the history, all the layers, that's the kind of man you want to settle down with; not the guy who only sees the pretty, the perfect. Because one day, that pretty and perfect will need work. And he won't want to do that. He will just move on to the newer and prettier.
Lazarus had an apartment in the shittiest building in the area. And maybe when he first moved to town, it was all he could afford. But that was no longer the case. Yet he didn't say fuck it and move on. He rolled up his sleeves and he got to work. He sweat and bled and cursed and put himself into it. He made it as good as it could be.
He was also someone who saw me face down in an alley overdosing and didn't call the cops and have me taken away, didn't wash his hands of me as soon as he was sure I wasn't dying.
He saw potential in me.
As someone who had stopped even seeing it in herself half a year before, that really penetrated; it got right through my layers of protection.
He didn't just see all the damage and think- No thanks. Been there, done that. Don't need the drama.
He saw what I could be, what I used to be, what I could be again with a little commitment, with a little sleeve-rolling and time and commitment to the end result.
It was a truly terrifying realization.
And not just because it meant he mattered, that he had the potential to truly hurt me like I had never let anyone hurt me before.
It was because if this kept on the same path, it meant my success and my failures would be his as well. It meant that for the first time since my mother passed, there was the potential for disappointing someone other than myself with my actions.