Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 146392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
She wasn’t sure she was following him. “Let me go?”
“Yes. Let you go.” He smoothed back her hair. “If I’d followed you to MIT like everyone thought I should, where would we be? I don’t think we would still be together, and that is what I didn’t want. I never wanted to be your schoolgirl crush, the one you look back on fondly while you marry the man you’re on equal footing with. I want to be that man, and now I know I can because you need two things from me.”
“And what are those?” Lou asked.
“You need someone watching your six at all times.”
“And the other?”
“This, baby. You need this.” He lowered his head and his mouth was on hers, and she couldn’t work up the will to stop him.
His body pressed hers into the softness of the mattress, pinning her there in a way that felt wicked and decadent. Like he’d tied her down and there was nothing she could do but accept whatever her Dom gave her. Somehow when he kissed her like that—like she was the only woman in the world—her brain shut up, and she could feel in a way she’d never been able to before.
When he kissed her she turned into someone else, someone sexy and submissive.
Someone she couldn’t be in the real world.
His tongue slid along hers as his cock pressed against her thigh.
She was already so wet. He wouldn’t have any problem taking her then and there. And then maybe she would understand why her friends were obsessed with sex. Why Tasha practically glowed after spending a night with Dare. Why her mom’s whole life had changed when she’d met Boomer Ward all those years ago.
She was in so much trouble because she couldn’t trust this. He was still in shock. He would change his mind. “This is a way for you to process what happened to you. Can’t you see that? This is a trauma response.”
He snorted and kissed her again. “If you’re so worried, then let’s get married. We can elope. It won’t surprise anyone. They’ve all been sitting around waiting for me to get smart enough to admit I can’t live without you.”
Married? The word was enough to bring her out of the dreamlike state his close proximity could put her in. She pushed against him. “TJ, get off me. Right now.”
He rolled to the side, covering his eyes. “It was too fast. The marriage thing was too fast, wasn’t it? See, it feels like it took too long for me to ask.”
“You didn’t ask. You suggested it as a way to deal with my feminine hesitation. Yes, it’s insane that I would question the motives of a man who has told me for years he doesn’t want this with me.” She forced herself to stand on wobbly legs. It had been such a day. She’d been running on pure adrenaline most of the time, and she was out of fuel.
“I never said I didn’t want you. I said it wasn’t a good idea. I no longer care about good ideas. I care about the fact that when it was all on the line, you were the only thing that mattered. You are my world and you always have been, but we found something we needed. It clicked. It finally clicked for us, baby, and I don’t want to waste another minute.”
She needed to cry, but she couldn’t. It had to wait until she was alone, until they were safe and no one could hear her. It was odd since it was something she’d learned from her mom when she was a kid. Her mother would find a quiet place to cry, thinking Lou wouldn’t notice. Even after she married, it had taken a long time for her mom to be open about her darker emotions. Lou, it seemed, had taken that lesson to heart.
She was going to lose him. She was going to lose him because she hadn’t been strong enough to resist.
“Hey.” He sat up, reaching for her hand.
She would have moved out of reach, but he was fast. He looked up, seeming to search her face.
“Baby, are you okay? That was a lot, and you haven’t cried yet, have you?”
“I don’t do that anymore.” She tried not to. When she was younger she would bottle things up, a leftover habit from when it had been just her and her mom, and she couldn’t put more on her mom so she would let it build and build and then spend hours in her closet, crying.
TJ had found her once, and he’d climbed in with her and held her hand for the longest time.
“If you haven’t then you need to.” He tangled their fingers together. “Today was a lot, and I would bet you still haven’t processed the fact that we nearly lost Tasha. It’s been a hell of a couple of weeks, and you haven’t purged at all, have you? You’ve been shoving it all down so you don’t worry your friends.”