Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83039 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83039 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Chapter Thirteen
Monroe
I had no idea why I was kissing Knox, only that I was. Kissing him felt less voluntary and more like an order from the commanding officer in the sky, and I was a hapless recruit powerless to do anything other than comply. And it wasn’t pity, nor was it only desire. It was the night, the spell he wove over me, how he’d trusted me with his dilemma. All of it combined to a level of intoxication where all I could do was kiss him.
The stars glittered above us, the moon a pale sliver in the dark night sky, the dim light from the house the only reminder we weren’t in some remote wilderness. He tasted sweet and a little spicy. The same addictive flavor as that first kiss a week ago on the dance floor. Had it seriously been only a week?
Felt like a lifetime. A lifetime of kisses and touches, but also like the barest of seconds, everything still brand new and as sparkly as the sky above us. Our hands tangled, holding fast against the rough wood of the narrow balcony. And that point of contact was almost more intimate than the meeting of our mouths. His grip tightened on mine, and I moaned as much from that delicious pressure as from what he was doing with his talented tongue.
“Want you,” he growled against my lips, and I moaned low, hips shamelessly seeking his cock, desperate for pressure. He pushed down on my hands, levering himself up and over me, a blessedly welcome weight. Not exactly holding me down. I could have rolled him off with little effort, but my abs trembled, a seldom-indulged desire surging to the front of my brain.
“Want you too.” I hooked a leg around his hips, holding him fast to me. Knox shifted, settling between my legs, forcing them wider—
“Whoa.” He clutched me hard as my foot connected with the creaky railing, making the whole balcony wobble and moan louder than we had. “Let’s not die tonight.”
“Let’s not.” I gave a shaky laugh.
“Yeah, plummeting three stories would be less than fun.” Knox regarded me through wary eyes. “Is this where you tell me that kiss was yet another mistake, and we both crawl off to our respective beds?”
“No. Nothing that good can be a mistake.” He’d trusted me with so much of his own truth that I felt compelled to be honest on a deeper level. “And I know I didn’t handle the other time well.”
“You think? This thing doesn’t have to be complicated, Monroe.” Scrubbing at his hair to readjust his topknot thing, he sat up, moving back from the edge of the balcony.
“I like when you say my name. And you’re right.” I nodded sharply as I too scrambled away from the railing and toward the open window.
“I am?” Knox paused halfway through the window, expression going from quizzical to cocky. “Wait. I am.”
“Don’t sound so smug. But yeah, I’m done fighting this pull between us. I’ve never felt chemistry quite like this.”
“That makes two of us. So now what?”
“Now we get off the damn roof because dying while coming is less than sexy.” I followed him back into his attic room. “But coming is definitely still on the agenda.”
“And where do you want to come, Monroe?” He turned toward me, expression so seductive I would have followed him right off a damn cliff edge, let alone that balcony.
“That’s quite the question.” Unbidden, an image flashed in my brain of myself flat on my back, come painting my stomach, Knox inside me, thrusting deep and hard. But I rarely bottomed, and there were so many other intriguing possibilities. Mouths and hands and acres of skin to contemplate.
“There’s a definite shortage of usable double beds in this house.” Laughing, Knox peered over at the daybed, which was only a twin like the bed in my room.
“That there is.” I was desperate enough to be willing to squeeze our two very adult-sized bodies on the nearest horizontal surface. Bed. Couch. The drawing desk. I glanced around the room as Knox chuckled again.
“Luckily, I have a healthy imagination.” He steered me to the hammock chair in the corner, pushing lightly on my shoulders until I sat, careful to not tip myself onto the hardwood floor.
“And what precisely are you imagining?” I looked up at the bolt affixed to the ceiling. The ropes were sturdy enough, as was the rainbow-striped canvas fabric, but I was still a little shaky after the near-fall on the balcony. “No way is this holding both of us.”
“Nope. But you’re going to sit right here and let me blow your mind.”
“In the swing?” I frowned. “Not sure this is any less likely to do me in than the rickety balcony.”
“Well, I haven’t killed anyone yet with my mouth. Happy to try though.” And with that, Knox sank to his knees in front of the hammock chair with a wicked grin and an eager mouth. Hell if I could do anything other than sit back and let his deft fingers undo my fly.