Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 104288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
The tears come in a sudden, hot rush. I close my eyes and surrender. I let him sink deep inside me. I let him kiss me senseless while he moves, surrounding me with the heat of his body.
Surrounding me with his certainty. It’s a soft place to land. I wrap my arms around his neck and let him hold me there, our bodies moving in tandem. This angle provides some friction, but not enough to get me where I need to go. I rock more ardently against his thrusts, feeling like I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t come.
“I can’t,” I manage. “Tuck, please, I can’t—”
“Yes you can.” Tuck’s fingers find my pussy. “Hold on to me. That’s it, that’s how you let me make you feel good. You’re doing so good, Tiny. You feel so fucking good.”
He rolls the pad of his thumb over my clit. The same thumb I just had in my mouth.
The muscles in my legs spasm. The pressure steals the breath from my lungs. Half a heartbeat later, the collision comes, a meeting of body and mind and light that cracks open the lockbox of my heart for good.
I’m yours.
For as long as Tuck will have me, I’m his.
He curls around me as I ride out the orgasm. I feel myself contracting around his length, and he bites my cheek as he growls, “See? The way you feel. I’ve never felt it. Nothing like it, Tiny. One in a million.”
Even through the pounding rush of bodily sensation, his words hit.
They hit hard. My heart is a puddle, soaking my insides with a potent mix of joy and fear.
Does that mean what I think it does?
Is this wildly handsome, kind, generous, genuine man actually falling for me too?
His kiss is messy now. So are his strokes. I hold on to him, offering my body to him the way he offered his to me. I kiss his neck. Graze his nipples with my fingertips.
He comes and shouts my name. I cover his mouth with my hand. He bites my palm, and I feel him spilling inside me.
I hope we didn’t wake Katie.
I hope we can do this again. All night. The evening’s disappointments are a distant memory with Tuck wrapped around me.
Tonight’s wins, though, are front and center, a shimmery news tape that loops through my head.
With all due respect. One in a million. Good girl. I don’t regret a damn thing.
Something is happening here. Something big and beautiful and, well, terrifying because it’s big and beautiful and new.
And maybe, to make room for this new thing—a new family—I have to move on from the family I know. I’d never disown them or anything like that. But I think I’ve outgrown being my parent’s perfect daughter.
I think I’m ready to be my own woman. Which means letting my parents’ expectations go.
It means trusting this man with my heart and the little soul growing inside me.
“I don’t regret a damn thing either,” I whisper against Tuck’s lips.
As close as a confession to being in love with him as I’m brave enough to give right now.
We clean up and lie in bed together. He’s on his side facing me, head propped on his hand, while I lazily run my fingers over his bare chest and sides.
I stop at the script on his ribs. “You never told me the story behind this: ‘Don’t let the bastards get you down.’”
His chest heaves on an inhale. “I got it right before my second deployment. Some Navy buddies and I went to Boston for a weekend to get amped up. We call it a hoo-yah trip.”
I grin. “That sounds fun.”
“It was awesome. There’s a lot of cool military history stuff up there, so we did that, then we ran around town like the heathens we were.” His turn to grin. “After five too many Jack and sodas, we decided to get tattoos. I’d always liked the phrase ‘don’t let the bastards get you down’—the idea of not letting life grind you to dust. Felt especially relevant at that point in my life. The fear I felt before being deployed—well, that’ll crush you. But I refused to let it.”
My heart squeezes. “I can’t imagine how terrifying that must have been.”
“You have your training, you have your friends. You rely on that to kind of keep you on an even keel.” He holds up his hand, fingers splayed, palm flat. “But yeah, I was scared out of my fucking mind. Especially the second time, because you know how bad it can get.”
“Tuck.” I kiss his shoulder. “I wish I could’ve been there to give you a hug.”
He laughs. “You were, like, twelve, Maren.”
“And you were fighting a war. Wow.” I laugh too. “That really puts it in perspective.”
“It wasn’t all bad. I liked the physical challenge of it. That, I was always good at.”