Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 79211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
"And then world domination," I say with forced cheerfulness.
“Exactly. My mother likes to say that man should not be alone.”
"Does she really quote the Bible to you? Does she know who you are?"
"I think it's because she knows who we are that she's always quoting the Bible to us. Hoping to save our souls or something."
That makes me laugh. I go to reach for another strawberry, remember his admonition, and very politely put my hand back in my lap.
"Good girl,” he says approvingly.
I love it when he praises me. I love it when he looks at me like he's starving and he wants to eat me up. I love a lot of things about the two of us and that's probably dangerous as hell.
He's sitting in a chair across from the bed, spread in that casual manly way with his knees parted and his elbows resting on his thighs. "I want to look at you. Stand in front of me, Harper.”
CHAPTER NINE
Harper
I’m super drunk, or high, or whatever you call the combination of both of those things. And I had no idea this could happen, but I swear every nerve ending in my body’s been lit on fire.
I flinch when he reaches for me but have no chance to do anything more before he tugs me onto his lap. The feel of his hardness pressing into my ass tells me he likes what he sees. Pride swells in my chest.
That feels nice, not scary like I’d imagined it would.
“How are you feeling now?” he asks. I hold my breath when he leans forward and slides his mouth over the hollow of my neck. His hair tickles my chin.
“Less inhibited, you could say.” My voice sounds distant. “What are you doing?”
His shoulders rise when he inhales. “You smell so good.”
“You wanted to smell me?”
“Mmm.”
“That’s an interesting take on foreplay.”
“It’s all foreplay, Harper. All of it. You running. The chase. Me catching you. Your sass and wit. Seeing you in that dress. Knowing what was beneath it.”
Flames of arousal lick at me. His grip tightens.
“When I was younger, I knew a man who was in college.” It’s funny to think of Aleksandr as a teen. Younger, innocent, less chiseled. Maybe his beard was scant. Maybe his eyes weren’t so hardened.
“He was kind of like another big brother. I was a virgin, and he was giving me some advice.”
Oh, boy.
I swallow. Do I want to hear this?
“You know how he told me to make sure a woman was ready for sex?”
“Um. Ask her?”
He smiles and shakes his head, his accent thicker with arousal. “He said to touch her everywhere and let her know how much I appreciated what I saw. And then kiss every inch of her body until she was so wet, she couldn’t stand it anymore.”
Well, damn. “I mean you could maybe do that.”
He brushes his lips across my cheek, my jaw, my neck. Moves to my shoulder and the top of each breast before he weighs each in his hands.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m…being persuaded.”
I’m nearing boneless when he bends me backward so he can kiss his way down the length of my body, from the valley between my breasts to my navel. The room is thick with anticipation, the warmth of the alcohol loosening my taut nerves, my restraint.
With every second that passes as he continues to kiss me, I sink deeper and deeper into a world where only the two of us dwell.
The magnetic pull between us grows, the connection undeniable. I’ve been hurt, yes.
But so has he.
I’ve lost my innocence.
So has he.
It gives me hope that when he finds out my secret, when he finds out everything about me, he’ll forgive me.
I almost feel like I can trust him. I almost feel like I could be honest. But right now, I can only focus on what has to happen tonight.
The air, as always, is charged between us. Electric. He kisses his way back up to my breasts, and my nipples pebble in anticipation. When he draws one of them between his lips and sucks, my hips rise of their own accord.
Waves of pleasure rock me when he plies the flat of his tongue against my nipples, one after the other. When I freeze, he stops long enough to issue an order. “Let go. Stop fighting me.”
I want to protest, to tell him to stop telling me what to do, but with every kiss, every lick and nibble and touch, my resolve begins to crumble. I can’t remember the thoughts that held me back before.
His touch is both gentle and firm, confident but unhurried. When his lips find mine, the last vestiges of the world around me cease to exist. A floating sensation overwhelms me.
And then I’m actually floating. We’re standing and he’s carrying me to the bed. With deliberate moves, he lays me on my back in the middle of the mattress and kneels beside me. We were here once before, and I asked him to stop. I can’t remember now why.