Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
But he could always show Josie how he felt with his lips and his body and pleasure.
CHAPTER TWENTY
As they walked hand in hand back to the houseboat, everything felt different somehow. They weren’t just playing around anymore. This was real. No longer a temporary fling, but something that might last forever. Even thinking the word stopped Malcolm in his tracks, and though he tried to cover it, Josie noticed.
“Everything okay?”
He resumed his normal stride. “Yes, everything’s great.” Her expression seemed a little strained. “What about you?” he asked. “How are you doing? It’s been a hell of a day, huh?”
She smiled, and that ray of sunshine never failed to make his heart beat a little faster. “I’m good. Really good. Everything is just so amazing. So many things I didn’t see coming have happened. Moving here. Making new friends so quickly. And… you.”
His brother’s words still lingered in Malcolm’s mind as he leaned over to kiss her. “You won’t regret taking a chance on Elderflower Island. And the new job. And me.” He kissed her again. “Especially me.”
She gave him another smile. “I hope so.” Her light reticence made him want even more to prove his feelings for her.
They walked past the handful of other houseboats, and he unlocked his door. As he closed it behind them, it felt like they were in their own private, special world. A world made just for the two of them. One where nothing could come between them. A world with no room for any doubts. Any fears.
“Nearly every time we’ve walked in this door, I’ve ripped your clothes off and pounced on you,” he said. “But I want you for so much more than just sex. You know that, don’t you?”
He had never cared whether a woman knew that he was emotionally invested before. This was the first time.
“I do know it.” And then she closed the gap between them. “And you don’t have to worry—you can always rip my clothes off the moment we’re behind closed doors. I love that about you. How you don’t hold back your passion.”
But he always had, before her. Held his passion in check. On all fronts. It was only now, only because of her, that he was finally letting those passions run free.
“You’re special to me, Josie. So damned special.”
She laid one hand against his cheek. “You don’t need to convince me. Everything you do has convinced me.” And then she moved even closer, wrapping her arms around his neck as she pressed herself against him. “Drinking champagne on an empty stomach made me feel a little wild. Do you want to be wild with me, Malcolm Sullivan?”
“Hell yes,” he growled, glad for the chance not only to love her, but also for the lovemaking to push away the voices inside his head asking if he really did know what he was doing. “Tell me one of your fantasies.” His request was raw, possessive. He didn’t want to give her one fantasy, he wanted to give her all of them. More than that, he wanted to be the only one to bring her pleasure ever again.
“When I’m with you,” she said in breathy voice, “I have so many fantasies. I don’t know which one to pick first.”
Her words thrilled him, knowing that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. “We’re going to do them all,” he promised. “So you can pick any of them, and you don’t have to worry. All I want is to give you pleasure. So much damned pleasure.”
He drew her closer, lowering his head to the curve of her neck and shoulder. “Tell me,” he breathed against her skin.
“Blindfold me.” Her cheeks became a beautiful rose color as she betrayed a hint of shyness at her own request. “I want to be nothing but sensation.”
He pressed a kiss to her lips, and then he quickly walked back into their bedroom to get a tie. He came back, dangling it between his index and middle finger.
“If at any point you want to change the game, we change it.”
She nodded, staring at the tie.
He moved behind her, his heart beating hard inside his chest. Already, it was difficult to breathe normally, and he hadn’t even stripped her clothes off or started touching her. That was what she did to him. She made him feel. Feel everything.
Gently, he brought the silk fabric over her eyes and then lowered it into place, tying a firm enough knot at the back of her head that it wouldn’t slip, but still making sure it was loose enough not to distract her. He didn’t want anything to distract her from all the ways he wanted to make her gasp and moan and cry out his name.
He lowered his hands to her shoulders, then ran them down her arms so that he could thread his fingers through hers. He lifted her hands up over her head. “Hold them there for as long as it’s comfortable.”