Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86799 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86799 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
“Let me assure you, sex has always been better in my imagination.” Taking an important beat, she locks eyes with me before she adds, “Until tonight.”
Ohhh.
Holy fuck.
I preen visibly this time. Rock star indeed.
Plus, I’m learning something fantastic. Max was bad in bed.
That should not make me so happy, but it does. Oh yes, it does.
“Good. You deserve lots of orgasms,” I tell her. “In fact, I bet I could give you two more before you’ve even eaten breakfast.”
Her eyebrows shoot high. “You’re on.” She sticks out a hand above the covers and shakes mine, then drops a kiss onto my lips. “Like a hero in a book would do,” she whispers. A yawn cuts off the last word, and she lies back on the pillow, her eyes fluttering.
“I’ll have my breakfast in bed, thank you very much,” I say, wishing it were morning already.
Another laugh, and I’ll take that too. Bet Max didn’t make her laugh like I do.
“And listen,” she adds, her words getting slurry. “Since we’re doing the only-one-bed-in-the-room trope, this seems like the time for the lay-out-the-ground-rules scene.”
Right. Rules. Friends with benefits need sex rules. “Like how long we do this? Whether it’s a trip-only trope?” I ask.
“Yes. Ticking clock and all. But I’m too tired. Morning?”
“Morning,” I agree.
I’m not looking forward to that conversation. But it’s better we have it. It’s better if we adult.
Seconds later, she’s snoring. The little liar. She does too snore.
Then she’s tugging all the covers off me and wrapping herself into them like a little cover piggy.
Ha. She fibbed about that as well.
I don’t fall asleep right away. I don’t even try. Instead, I just stare out the window, and imagine a new story unfolding.
A feisty woman and a smart-aleck man. He’s got a chip on his shoulder. She’s been hurt.
They meet on a train, and somewhere, sometime after midnight, he uncovers another solution to his plot problem.
If he can win her over in bed, maybe, just maybe, he can subtly, so artfully she won’t even know it’s happening, get her to fall in love with him, day by day, until she’s as smitten as he is.
But when I settle back into bed with the anti-cuddler, she’s turned the other way, wrapped up in the covers and her own sleepy world, and I take that as a sign that the story will be better if the hero stops reaching for the stars.
She’s told him, for all intents and purposes, that she wants to be friends again.
Friendship will have to be enough.
24
THE TRUTH ABOUT SIXTY-NINE
Axel
But I can’t have that ground-rules talk when I wake up—my mouth is rightfully occupied.
Soon, I can barely breathe, but I’m not stopping. I’ll scuba dive without oxygen until she comes.
It’s early in the morning, she’s grabbing my head in a vise grip, squeezing my face with her thighs, fucking my mouth with her pussy.
There is no air, but who cares if I go blue? Best way to die.
Hazel is seconds away from coming on my mouth as I devour her sweet, hot center. Then, with several concentrated, devoted flicks of my tongue, I elicit a glorious Oh god, yes, as she shudders and cries out.
Somehow, she grips my face even tighter as she climaxes. But book heroes are undeterred by little obstacles like insufficient oxygen. I lick her till she gently pushes me away.
“Damn, woman, were you trying to kill me through cunnilingus?” I ask, as I move up next to her.
With a long exhale, she says, “That sounds like something that might happen in one of your sex scenes.”
“Please. The hero would get lockjaw, be unable to argue his way out of a situation with Interpol, and wind up in jail.”
“But of course,” she says, then sighs again as she runs a hand through her hair, savoring her post-sex high. I’d like to take that sound and bottle it. Take hits of it when I need a shot of adrenaline, a boost of extra confidence.
“My heroes’ sex injuries always drive the plot.” Like the time the pulled muscle from a shower-bang made it harder for the hero to grab onto the back of a rickety old truck absconding with stolen antiques.
“Didn’t some reviewer once say your sex scenes are weirdly realistic and somehow still ridiculously hot?”
I grin, clucking my tongue. “That’s me.”
She laughs, then she sets a hand on my chest. “But I guess I’m not such a great villain if you’re still alive.”
“Alive and horny. Also, feel free to kill me anytime with your pussy.”
“Sorry not sorry. I just kind of got into it.”
“Kind of?” I ask, arching a brow.
“You really like teasing me,” she observes, then pushes up on her elbows. “While you were down there not dying, I was almost going to ask you to fuck my face at the same time, but then I remembered something.”