Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 97188 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97188 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“Where are we—” She makes that delightful squeaking noise again as I haul her across the deck to the captain’s cabin and through the door. The place reeks of aftershave and some kind of herb, but I don’t care. I haven’t known Maeve that long, but it feels like I’ve been waiting forever to get my hands on her properly. I can’t wait any longer.
I slam the door and lock it and then press her against it, molding my body to hers. “Do you feel the same as when we last spoke?”
Understanding dawns in her inky eyes. Quickly followed by desire hot enough to scald me. She worries her bottom lip, and it’s everything I can do not to close the rest of the distance and soothe that spot with my tongue. “I still want you, if that’s what you mean,” she finally says.
I barely manage to hold myself back. All I want to do is ravish her, but some lines are sacred. My voice is ragged when I finally manage to speak. “If that changes, no matter where we are or what we’re doing, this stops.”
If anything, she softens even further against me. “I know.”
There’s no reason to hesitate any longer. I dig my hands into her curly hair and angle her head so I can take her mouth. Maeve tastes like the sea, salty and enticing enough to drive me to become a sailor and never touch dry land again. To lose myself in her in a way that I’ve never wanted to do with anyone else before.
Then her hands find my hips, urging me closer yet, and there’s no space for thinking anything at all. I kiss her like I’ve wanted to for far too long. Tongue and teeth and the lightest of nips. Not quite a bite, but pleasure shudders through her body all the same.
We’re doing this. We’re finally doing this.
I’ll fucking kill anyone who interrupts us before we’re done.
chapter 17
Maeve
My body buzzes with the combination of being whole once more and Lizzie’s hands on my skin. She’s so incredibly strong, yet she touches me like I’m spun gossamer. Considering the violence she’s capable of—the violence she craves—this is a gift that I barely know what to do with. It would be all too easy to allow myself to believe that she treats me like this because she cares.
That belief is a trap.
This is the culmination of the lust that’s spawned between us. Nothing more. Nothing less. I can enjoy myself as long as I keep my expectations reined in.
“Maeve.” Lizzie’s voice is rough in my ear. “If you don’t want to—”
“I do,” I blurt. I grab the band of her pants and jerk her closer yet. “I really, really do.”
“Then obviously I need to pull out all the stops to keep you from mentally wandering.” She laughs softly. “Come on. I’d love to fuck you against a door later, but that’s not what we’re doing the first time.”
She eases away from me, and I have to bite down the protest at the loss of her body against mine. I can’t help that my brain is constantly spinning. Especially now. Especially in this situation, with this person. The last partner I had was mopped off the deck outside. A fitting punishment, perhaps, for his betrayal, but it’s the betrayal in question that has me all twisted up. I trusted him, and he didn’t hesitate to use that trust to rip out a piece of me with his bare hands.
Lizzie yanks all the bedding off the bed and tosses it on the floor. “The mattress is clean. That’s good.”
I don’t ask how she’s able to tell. I can smell the truth of her statement. I still watch with wide eyes as she digs through one of the heavy trunks against the wall until she comes up with clean bedding. “Lizzie—”
“I am not fucking you on a bare mattress like a college kid.” She picks up her pace, moving in a blur around the bed as she makes it. Then she kicks the used sheets farther away for good measure. “One last thing.” Lizzie walks to me and plucks my pelt from where I’d dropped it at my feet.
I bite down my instinctive protest. I’m between her and the door. If she thinks to—
But all she does is fold it neatly, using far more care than she did with any of the blankets or sheets to date, and set it gently on the nearest closed chest. She turns to face me, and I don’t know what my expression is doing, but it makes her stalk slowly to me. “That was the smallest of kindnesses. Don’t look at me with your heart in your eyes, Maeve. That’s not what this is.”
“I know,” I manage. If I think too long on how much such a small kindness affects me, I might get depressed. Lizzie has never been less than honest with me about her intentions and plans. At the end of this, she leaves and I go home. There is no future that contains the two of us side by side.