Total pages in book: 211
Estimated words: 201554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1008(@200wpm)___ 806(@250wpm)___ 672(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1008(@200wpm)___ 806(@250wpm)___ 672(@300wpm)
I let him turn and lower the seat and ease me into the chair beside him, the two of us facing each other, his lips parting mine, his breath fanning my cheek, my lips. “We can’t do this here,” I say weakly.
“I pulled the curtain to the front of the plane which means we’ll be left alone,” he promises even as he caresses my skirt up my legs. “And since I don’t have a condom,” he adds, “I say we roll the dice.”
“What?” I try to pull away but his hand settles on my lower back, holding me fast and close, “What if I get pregnant again? We just—”
He kisses me and cups my backside, molding me against his thick erection. “Quam quae potest esse diligentissima,” he murmurs next to my lips. “Another one of my tattoos that means—”
“What is meant to be,” I whisper, “And I’m thankful now that my father taught me Latin.”
“Yes,” he replies. “What is meant to be. This is our time, sweetheart.” And then he’s kissing me again, and I have no protest left in me. This is our time, but that doesn’t mean that we’ll end up together. What is meant to be might be the end of us, and that thought has me throwing caution to the wind. I kiss him with all that I am, like these will be the last few hours we’ll ever share, and I don’t know why I fear that it is.
Chapter forty-eight
Harper
We’re different now, the events of the day changing us and who we are together though I can’t say how. Every touch and kiss just feels taut with underlying emotion, deeper, more intimate, more vulnerable and yet more confident and sure.
I tug at his shirt, but the space is too small for me to free it from his pants. Instead, my palms caress the flex of his hard body beneath his clothing. He responds to my desperation, a low, gruff sound of hunger rumbling in his chest. I revel in the depth of his arousal, in my ability to drive him wild, to drive him further. He palms my ass and squeezes the thick ridge of his erection against my belly when I want him inside me.
His hand slides up and under my skirt, over my thigh and there is something about this man’s touch that can be gentle and rough in the same moment, and it’s fire and ice, and wicked torment. And I like it. “Harper,” he whispers, his lips traveling my jaw, down to my neck, distracting me for a brief moment before his fingers are under my panties, stroking that wet heat that drenches me and now his fingers. I pant with the flick of my clit, and then he’s pressing inside me—one finger, two, his mouth closing over mine, tongue licking my tongue, even as he does wicked things to my body.
I grab his arm, fingers twining in his shirt, sensations rocking my body, and I can’t stop what comes next. His thumb is working just the right spot while his fingers pump all the right places, and I am floating in that beloved place that is as much pain as it is a promise of pleasure. I tumble into a shuddering, quaking, incredible release, and when my body collapses in sated satisfaction, Eric leans in, his lips at my ear. “I’m learning all your little sweet spots. I’ll know all of your secrets.”
Those words are not an accident.
He’s telling me he believes that I am still keeping secrets. And I am, but not the kind he wants to know. Not the kind he needs to know and I have to be strong enough not to tell him. Because they’re really not my secrets at all. They’re a part of his life he doesn’t even know, but knowing would be nothing but glass raining down on him, cutting him with a thousand broken pieces.
Chapter forty-nine
Harper
I’ll know all of your secrets.
Eric’s words don’t linger in the air and fester in my mind for long at all. He rights my clothes and kisses my temple. “I need to log onto the internet and get an update.”
It’s the kiss on my temple that undoes me. It’s something a man who cares about you does. He cares about me. He came back for me. The only secret I had that was mine, he now knows. The rest, what I’ve held back, and he’s obviously sensing, is history that serves no purpose besides hurting him and eating me alive. Okay, maybe I do have a secret. No, it’s more of a gray area where I didn’t tell him everything, but I didn’t lie. It just wasn’t necessary that he know the rest of the story. And that story matters zero in present day.
Zero.
It serves no purpose but to hurt him, I repeat in my mind, because my guilt could easily make me selfish. My clear conscience would make me feel better but at his expense.