Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
“Our timing is pretty awful.” My thighs squeezed his waist as I feathered a kiss over his cheek.
“Our timing is shit.” His hand stroked down my spine but never went for my ass.
I wished he would. I wanted him in every possible way I could have him until the sun set. “Then give me the next few hours.”
Every line of his body drew tight against me, and his breaths grew ragged when I kissed a line down the side of his neck.
“Izzy,” he groaned, his grip tightening in my hair to gently pull me away. The lust in his eyes dimmed the sting of rejection. “I don’t want hours. I want nights. Days. Weeks. I want to haul you into a room and lock us away until I know every inch of your body, taste everywhere you like to be kissed, explore every way to make you come, and then listen as your voice goes hoarse from screaming my name. That’s . . .” He shook his head.
“Yes. That’s a yes.” Everything he’d listed sounded fantastic.
“I was going to say madness.” He grinned, and I melted at that flash of dimple. “And I might kick the shit out of myself for saying this next week, when I have every second of this moment on constant replay in my head, but I want the one thing we don’t have, Izzy, and that’s time.”
“I know. Me too.” I wanted a chance, a real, unhurried chance at what we might be. “Does that mean you’re done kissing me?”
“Fuck no.” He kissed me long and slow, the tempo changing into an unhurried, thorough seduction. “I’ll kiss you whenever you ask, Isabeau Astor.”
“Promise?” I smiled against his mouth.
“Promise.” He made good on it, kissing me until our skin puckered in the water. He kissed me as we dried off, as we walked to his truck, and before and after our very late lunch.
He kissed me until my lips were swollen and I knew every line of his mouth with the same familiarity he did mine.
Then my bag was checked, the book he’d chosen was tucked into my carry-on, and my throat tightened with every step as he walked me to the security checkpoint at the airport.
What if the time we wanted never came?
What if this was all we’d have?
What if—
“Stop.” He turned me in his arms and cradled my face. “Whatever you’re thinking, just stop.”
My eyes stung, and I knew it wasn’t from salt and sun. “What if you don’t come home?”
His brow knit and he leaned in slowly, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll come home.”
“You don’t know that.” The fabric of his shirt was soft in my fingers as my fists clenched against his chest.
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’m ridiculously hard to kill.” He hugged me tight, resting his chin on the top of my head.
“You say that like it’s going to stop me from worrying every day for the next year.”
“No.” He gripped my shoulders and leaned back, looking at me with such intensity that my breath caught. “Don’t do that either. Don’t you dare sit around and worry. Don’t waste your life waiting on me, Izzy.”
My lips parted, but there were no words for the way my heart teetered on the edge of his demand, ready to fall . . . or to break.
“I won’t do that to you.” He cradled the side of my face, stroking his thumb over my cheek. “You are worth so much more.”
“And if I want to do it to myself?” Shit, was that my voice breaking?
“Don’t,” he begged, his voice fading to a whisper. “You just uprooted your whole life for someone. Don’t wish away the months for someone else.” He lifted a brow. “And don’t think this has anything to do with me not wanting you, or some bullshit. God, what I would do for you if I just . . . could.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“We’re—” He swallowed and took a stuttered breath. “We’re us. Nate and Izzy.”
“Undefined,” I whispered, remembering his earlier words that it wouldn’t be fair to either of us to try and label the unexplainable.
“If you want to write, then I’ll do the same. If you don’t, then I won’t pressure you. I want you to have every single opportunity you want for yourself in DC.”
“Even if that opportunity means someone else?” I challenged. Maybe it was childish, but I didn’t care. Not when we were about to take the gift fate had given us and squander it over him not wanting me to wait.
He held my gaze with steady, unwavering eyes and nodded. “Even if that means someone else. Every second I’ve had with you is a gift I’ve never deserved, and I refuse to think of you back here, missing out on . . . anything because of me.”