Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
He laved the velvety curve of her neck with his tongue, anointing the skin with gentle bites that had her writhing beneath him as they devoured each other’s mouths and frantically explored each other’s bodies. Her clothes long discarded, chest heaving, Kerris wrapped her legs around his and pushed into him, only his slacks separating her from what she needed more than air. She was hollow. She was an empty ache without him. It wasn’t enough.
“Walsh, oh God. Inside. I need you inside.”
“Kerris.” He pushed her name out, ragged between harsh breaths. He pressed his forehead to hers. “We have to stop. Baby, we can’t.”
“Yes, we can.” She bit his earlobe with delicate ferocity.
“They’re your ground rules. You didn’t want to do that to him.”
Him. Cam.
The name poured ice water on her passion, the steam of shame and guilt rising up off her heated flesh. She sat up, grabbing for the edge of the richly colored duvet, pulling it over her bare breasts.
“Oh, God, Walsh.” Embarrassment watered her voice. “I just…I forgot. I didn’t mean…I didn’t want…”
“I wanted.” He collapsed onto his back, arm flung across his eyes. She heard the deliberate slowing of his breath. “I still want.”
“I’m glad you stopped.” Kerris wished she’d had the willpower and presence of mind to. “You could have…well, I wouldn’t have stopped you.”
“As much as I want you, it wouldn’t have been worth your guilt. And I know you would’ve felt guilty.”
How many men would think like that?
“You’re right. I would have felt awful if it came up in the divorce hearing. If they asked if we…you know…actually had sex, and I had to say we’d…well, you know.”
“Divorce hearing?” Walsh lowered his arm from his eyes to look at her. “When is that?”
“Less than a month away.”
“Will Cam be there?” Kerris heard the strain in his voice.
“Yeah, I guess so.” Kerris tightened her fingers around the cover concealing her naked breasts, working up the nerve to ask a question she had considered more than once. “Do you ever miss him?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Walsh started sitting up, but Kerris pushed him back down.
“Do you?” She leaned over him and searched his eyes for the truth.
“Sometimes, I guess.” His eyes held hers for a few moments before he looked at some point over her shoulder. His eyes turned flinty. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Walsh, one day—”
“Let’s get something straight.” Walsh carefully removed her hand and dragged himself to sit with his back against the headboard. “The only one day I care about is ours. Yours and mine.”
“I don’t want you to wake up someday resenting me for taking away someone who was such a huge part of your life.”
“He left you, abandoned you.”
“He left Mama Jess with me.”
“Are you defending him?”
“No, but I’m not defending myself either. Jo told me about the fight.” Kerris swallowed, not knowing details, but knowing how barbed Cam’s tongue could be. And knowing Walsh.
“What fight?” Walsh stood up and walked to the end of the bed, leaning one shoulder against the bedpost, eyes hedging.
“Between you and Cam.” She crawled to the end of the bed, carefully clutching the covers around herself. She looked up at him. “I know it’s not easy thinking about his time with me.” She reached for his hand.
“You mean about him having sex with you?” His face like granite, Walsh clenched his other hand into a tight fist.
“Yeah, I guess.” She squeezed a small breath into the narrowed passage of her lungs. “I know this is awkward.”
“It’s wrong that he had you, and that I…God, if you had only listened to me that night, we could have—”
“Avoided all this? This is my fault, right? That’s what you want to say.”
She was goading him into an explosion she might regret, but at least all their cards would be on the table once and for all. He jerked his hand away, turning to lean his back against the bedpost.
“I’m not saying that. Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“Are you telling me that when you think about Cam with me you don’t hate me just a little?” Kerris forced the words past the lump of shame clogging her throat. “Resent me just a little?”
“I could never hate you. Stop it. Don’t do this.”
Even with his back turned, she could see the anger calcifying his posture. He was like a famished tiger held back from raw meat by a strand of floss.
“We have only a few days together before I leave for Tokyo. I’m not wasting time talking about my feelings for Cam.”
“You haven’t thought about it? Haven’t envisioned—”
“I said stop it right now.”
Walsh turned to face her, lips clamped so tightly together the syllables were ground to paste. He strode like a caged panther to the window, facing away from her. He slammed his hand against the glass before turning back to her, the city lights behind him a beautiful spectacle.