Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92180 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92180 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Gritting my teeth, I bow my head, my hands gripping her legs hard as I rock against her, dragging out every last memorable drop.
When I’m emptied, I’m so depleted, I let her legs down and fall onto her. I hold most of my weight off her, but our chests, pressed together, are slick with sweat. Her heart beats madly against mine as we struggle to catch our breaths.
“You okay?” I ask, my chin resting on her shoulder.
“I’m wrecked like I’ve never been wrecked before,” she says in a husky voice as her fingers trail along my biceps.
That comment shouldn’t please me as much as it does, but to wreck a powerful, sexy, confident woman like Brienne Norcross is quite the achievement.
Maybe it’s my ego, but I can’t help taking a dig. “Boy toy could learn a thing or two.”
She makes a dismissive sound, and I raise my head off her shoulder to look at her. “His name’s Clay, and he’s not in the picture anymore.”
I could have done without knowing his name, and that it bothers me to know his name bothers me even more. I can’t care about stuff like that, and I let her know. “You didn’t break up with him because of me, did you?”
Brienne frowns. “No. I ended things before you.”
“Good,” I say adamantly. “Because I’m not asking you to.”
“Good,” she mimics. “Because I fuck who I want and when I want. Clay was convenient, just like you’re convenient. Just like there are a lot of convenient men.”
Well, damn. She turned that around on me.
“We’re in agreement, then,” I say, dipping my head and feathering a kiss along her jaw.
She sighs, hand going to the back of my head. “We’re in agreement. We don’t owe each other anything.”
“Except good orgasms,” I murmur as I lift my head.
Brienne smiles. “Except good orgasms.”
That seals it. We agree we’ll fuck on occasion and are free to be with others. It’s the perfect deal for me and holds with my current philosophy that I’m never committing to another woman again.
It’s refreshing to find a woman like Brienne who feels the same.
I lucked out.
Except… the thought of her being with someone else doesn’t sit quite right, but I push that away when she scrapes her nails along my neck.
“I hope you’re not going to run off,” she says. “I believe you promised I could get my mouth on you again.”
A purr of desire bubbles in my chest, and my spent cock isn’t so spent. It twitches at the thought of Brienne’s pretty lips on me, and something deep in my belly tells me that, despite the casual boundaries we’ve established, she’s going to be a lot more complicated than I’d like.
CHAPTER 9
Brienne
The car slows to a stop, and I tell the driver I’ll only need a few minutes. I grab the two bouquets and exit the vehicle before walking across a slight knoll to the Norcross family plots. My parents share a grave marked by a large headstone of white marble, even though my father remarried after my mom died. While his new wife was significantly younger than he was, I didn’t begrudge him the happiness. I think she cared for him, and the greatest act of love she showed was agreeing to let me and Adam bury him with our mother. It’s not like she wasn’t left well cared for by his estate. Last I heard, she was living in Miami with someone closer to her own age and they had a child.
I put one of the bouquets on my parents’ headstone, trailing my fingers along the stone warmed by the last days of summer. Moving to Adam’s grave, I sit on the ground cross-legged facing his marker.
Adam Norcross
Gone but never forgotten.
No, never forgotten, and it’s not fair the world only had thirty-six years with him. It’s not fair I only had him for the duration of my thirty-three years.
Leaning forward, I place the flowers at the base of the gravestone and pluck a piece of grass to wind around my finger as I catch my brother up on my life.
“This week has been both exhausting and exhilarating, as I’m sure you know.” I’m not sure where Adam’s soul is—if there’s a heaven or an afterlife or if he’ll be reincarnated. I choose to believe he’s watching over me, though.
“How about our Titans?” I smile brightly as if he were sitting right next to me. “Winning the first three preseason games. I’m pretty sure bringing Cannon West on may go down as the single most brilliant move I’ll make for this team. Who knows, maybe you were guiding me along the way. Things are really starting to settle down, especially after I fired Keller. That was oddly satisfying, and while I’m still learning the ropes, I knew enough to know he was bad for the team.