Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“That clearly wasn’t the answer you wanted,” he says guardedly.
“You left me because you wanted freedom,” I remind him. “You didn’t want to answer to a girlfriend. I’m not stupid, I know that meant you wanted to be free to be with other women.”
“Gracen,” he says in a chastising tone, but I hold my hand up to silence him.
“I’m not built to be just one of your women, Marek. I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough for me.”
I expect a few things. Anger, mostly that I’m cutting him off. Possibly some chagrin.
Instead, the nut job laughs at me. A deep belly laugh as his eyes sparkle with amusement.
“How is this possibly funny?” I seethe at him.
“Because I’m an idiot and don’t express myself very well, apparently.” I jolt at his proclamation and yes, there’s the chagrin I’d been expecting, but for different reasons.
Marek crawls onto the bed. His hands go to my ankles, and with a quick pull and a yelp from me, he has me lying on the mattress again.
Nudging his way between my legs, which shamelessly part just as easily as they did a few minutes ago, he presses his elbows into the mattress near my ribs. This brings his face right over mine, his eyes locking onto mine. “Gracen…I haven’t been with another woman since that day I walked into the church to stop your wedding.”
“You haven’t?” I ask, my eyebrows furrowing inward.
He shakes his head. “I can’t lie and tell you it’s because I was obsessing about you the entire time. Mostly, I was just so thrown by having a daughter that I was trying to get my feet underneath me. I couldn’t really think about anything else. But ever since I kissed you that night I was drunk, well…you’re definitely the only woman I’ve been thinking about.”
“For now,” I can’t help but say, my voice small and meek. I hate that he makes me doubt everything.
“Yeah, for now,” he confirms, and I hate his honesty even more. “But, Gracen…now is all we have. And right now, you and I have reconnected in a way that I don’t think either of us planned on. You and I share something that I’ve never shared with another woman, and for some reason, that’s changed something inside of me. I just…I want you. I want only you. I don’t know what this means past that, but I’m guessing we’ll figure it out.”
It’s not a declaration of love, but then again, I never expected that. While my feelings for Marek always remained, I know my actions—not telling him about his daughter—destroyed anything he may have felt for me.
Which is why this is confusing right now, but I guess you don’t have to love someone to be intimate with them. While I was in love with Marek when I decided to give him my virginity, I’ve been with men after him I didn’t love. I cared for them, and they weren’t meaningless, but I’ve never loved anyone but Marek.
“Talk to me, Gracen,” Marek says as he holds his weight off me.
I nibble on my lower lip a moment to collect my thoughts. “So we’ll have a sexual relationship, be monogamous, and raise Lilly together?”
I don’t know whether to like the fact or not that he actually winces over the way I put it, but that’s exactly what it is.
He nods. “It’s a start.”
And yes, I suppose this could be the start of something new. We’ll never have what we did before, because there are too many hurts that run way too deep. But what we have now is something I think I can handle.
I love him, after all.
Bringing my hands up to curl around his neck, I tell him, “I think I can get on board with that.”
Marek’s smile causes my heart to flat-out skip a few beats. You’d think he’d won the lottery or something, but I’m the one who feels like a winner as he settles his weight onto my body and kisses me deeply.
I moan as he possesses my mouth and his cock lengthens and hardens as it presses between my legs. Marek’s head pops up, and his eyes are fevered as he looks at me for just a moment. My hips swivel, trying to create friction, and that seems to jar him. He attacks my mouth again, but rolls us both to our sides. His hands tear at my clothes while I go first for his belt and zipper. I have him in my hand just as his mouth closes over a nipple he’d managed to expose by jerking my top over my head. I squeeze him hard and then start to stroke him.
“Fuck,” he mutters against my breast, and then he’s cupping me between my legs. “Let’s get the rest of these clothes off.”
I giggle as I push him away from me. He rolls right off the bed and starts undressing faster than I’ve ever seen a person do. I barely get my shorts and panties off before he’s back on top of me, mouth fused to mine.