Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 94546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
CHAPTER 25
JACK
My lungs secure their first entire breath in almost seven hours when Octavia’s lips part at the lashing request of my tongue. The weight on my chest feels infinitely lighter from the groan she releases when I spear my tongue into her mouth. I drag it along the roof of her mouth, tasting a palette that is uniquely her, yet so exquisitely delicious, it should be available worldwide.
A man would never taste a finer wine.
It was stupid of me to forget the marks that kept my playboy title fictitious, heedless to show them off without warning, but I wasn’t lying when I said Octavia makes the woes of my past seem nonexistent. For years, I hid behind a shame I don’t deserve to have, but I also didn’t want to be painted as a victim, so instead of fighting as I am now to keep alight the only thing I have worth of value, I let the monster win.
No matter how small the reward or how undeserving the recipients were, I threw myself into every project I could find. Charities, businesses, a media chain that stretches from one side of the globe to the next, I’ve done it all, yet not one single achievement I have amassed the past twelve years has given me greater contentment than having Octavia breathless beneath me, involuntarily shuddering through the aftermath of countless orgasms.
When she ran from me, I thought I’d lost the chance to experience that again.
I thought it was out of my reach.
I’m a fool.
My kiss alone has Octavia on the cusp of climax. Now I just need to push her over the edge.
“Jack…” She breathes into my mouth when I guide her legs around my waist before I shift on my feet so her back can brace the tiled wall. I won’t drop her, but I need her back far enough I can watch how her skin heats from the tips of her toes to her neck when my cock is sunk deep inside her. “We shouldn’t… we need… there’s so much we need to talk about.”
Her last word comes out garbled from me rocking my hips forward. I drag the crown of my cock over her aching clit before locking my eyes with her already flushed face. I won’t enter her without permission. No matter how loud the silent pleas are, I will never take anything not willingly given.
“Jack…” Octavia hiccups, darts her eyes around the bathroom, then slowly returns them back to my face. She watches me as intently as I watch her before she whispers. “W-we can’t.” An expression pulls on my face. I can’t tell you exactly what one, but Octavia could. She has a way of reading me like no one else has, and her confidence that she knows me as well as I believe she does changes the angst in her tone to need in under half a second. “Caleb has rules about no hanky-panky in the bathroom. You’re meant to get clean here, not dirty.”
“So, you’re not saying no. You just don’t want to do it here?” My voice is steady and without pitch, but I am feeling anything but calm.
The tight band around my chest loosens its firm hold when she bobs her head. It allows me to secure another breath, but my lungs aren’t close to being as replenished as they were only moments ago.
“But…” When her eyes stray to the floor and her teeth catch her lower lip, I growl out her name, “Tivy.” Her nickname always breaks through her barrier first, then my gentle eyes obliterate it. “Just like you, nothing you could say will change how I feel about you.” Our conversation seems nowhere near as serious as it is when I push out with a chuckle, “You drive me crazy, and I’m reasonably sure my shrink is going to start billing me double, but I’m here for the long haul. I’m not going anywhere. That’s why I bought the penthouse for you. Because I will never run from you.”
The heartache her face hasn’t stopped wearing since I spotted her in the hallway of Jess’s apartment deepens a little when she murmurs, “Promise?”
I brush her hair out of her face so nothing interferes with her ability to see the honesty in my eyes when I reply, “I promise.”
When she exhales a relieved sigh, her breath fans my cheeks. It appears set to be replaced with a string of words, but before one can fire from her tongue, the buzzer on her apartment door roars through the bathroom.
Octavia spreads her hand across my thrusting chest when it swells in response to someone being at the stoop of her apartment so early on a Sunday morning. “It’s probably just Caleb checking in.”
The barrier she barely dropped while holding me tight in the shower resurrects when she wiggles in my arms, wordlessly requesting to be put down.