Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 138522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
He catches my hip and drags me to him. “You’re playing with fire.”
“Stop warning me away and pulling me back. Choose, Gabe. All in, remember? Or is that code for only if it’s me?”
His jaw clenches, his gaze lowering, raking over my naked breasts, and I can’t explain it, but I’m more naked right now, in this moment, with this man, than I’ve ever been before.
“All in, Abbie. That’s what you want? That’s what you’ll get.” He backs me up and presses my hands on the bar behind me and at my sides. He shackles my hips, and pulls me forward, forcing me to use them to hold myself up. “Keep your hands there,” he orders. “If you move them, I’ll punish you.”
Heat rushes through me but there is no fear. I don’t fear this man the way I feared Kenneth. I will never fear Gabe. I damn sure don’t fear the thick bulge of his erection pressing against my belly. “Punish me?” I challenge. “How would you punish me, Gabe?”
“You still haven’t been properly spanked, now have Abbie?”
“You spanked me, remember?”
“That was a love pat, remember? A spanking” he adds, most likely for effect, as he’s watching me with hooded eyes. “My hands on your pretty little ass. My cock buried inside you while I make it burn.”
His hand on my ass.
Spanking me.
His eyes lower to my mouth, linger with a promise of a kiss I crave but that doesn’t come, his gaze lifting with his own challenge. “Are you scared now?”
“If that’s the goal, it’s safe to say that you failed. I’m pretty sure what’s going on with me right now, can not be described as fear. Are you scared?”
I expect him to laugh or balk but he doesn’t. He leans in close, his lips at my ear, “From the day I met you, baby. From the day I met you.” He pulls back to look at me, blue eyes lit up and like fires in a forest, they burn a path through me. “And you’re right. I am pushing you. Right here. Right now. Don’t move.”
He steps back from me, and obedience is easy this time. He undresses. I get to watch and watching Gabe get naked is a sight to see. He’s long. He’s lean. He’s all muscle and that tattoo. That lion tattoo on his arm means more to me every time I see it. It’s strength and family. It’s him, the real him, the man willing to fight to win. And his cock, well, he’s blessed in that department and so am I. His shaft juts forward, thick and heavily veined with arousal.
My teeth sink into my bottom lip, all this talking and watching about to undo me. I need him. I need him next to me. I need him touching me. I need him inside me. I just need him to touch me and thankfully he does. He pulls me forward, cups my ass, scrapes his teeth over the spot where mine had just been, nipping roughly.
I yelp and he cups my head. “Now for that spanking. You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?”
“You really do want to scare me, don’t you?”
He grips my hair, erotic and rough, and tugs my gaze to his. “No. I want to give you a reason to forget the fucked up parts of me. I want to make you feel more pleasure than you have ever felt in your life.”
“And your hand does that?”
“Are you willing to trust me and find out?”
I don’t even hesitate. “Yes.”
He doesn’t immediately reply, as if he’s weighing my response, as if he’s thinking about his. “I need to know that you were never abused sexually, Abbie. I need to know this really is pleasure for you, a game we play and enjoy together. Not a trigger.”
That he stops in the middle of the emotions and physical push and pull between us and asks me this is everything. “Nothing is a trigger with you.”
“Did he ever—”
“No. Sex wasn’t his thing. He got off on fear, real fear. Not the emotional baggage kind of fear we’ve been talking about.”
His hand loosens in my hair, flattens on my head. “I would never hurt you. If you ever want to stop, just say stop.”
“You think I don’t know that? I told you: I know you.”
“Suddenly,” he says softly. “I hope you do.”
And then he’s kissing me again, and somehow it’s tender and rough with the demand at the same time, but then that makes sense. This is Gabe. This is the man I could fall in love with. This is the man I am falling in love with.
Chapter sixty-seven
Gabe
Her submission. Her trust. Her. I just fucking want her. I fucking love her though I won’t admit that, not now. Maybe not ever. I fold her naked body against mine and turn her, walking her toward the couch, pushing her. I am pushing her. I am pulling her closer. I’m a contradiction where she’s concerned. Beyond reason, I want her to run if she’s going to run. I want her to stay, no matter how much she wants to run.