Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Holy fuck. These rampaging hormones need to stop already.
“You want to kiss me?” I have to clarify that. “Right now? Really? Me?”
“I shouldn’t,” he groans.
“I’m not asking what should or shouldn’t be done. I’m asking what you want. You did say that, right? I wasn’t just hallucinating because my nipple swelled up so big that it cut off the circulation to my brain?” It probably has, or why else would I say something so ridiculously embarrassing?
“You’re not hallucinating. I just executed poor judgment.”
“What if I like your poor judgment? What if I liked being swept up into your arms on the beach? What if I liked being near you? What if I like the way you smell and the things you say and your proximity?” I’m too breathless, thank freaking god, to ask him what if I want to have all the orgasms that involve you because I know they’d wreck my brain and my vagina and my whole world?
It doesn’t matter that I shouldn’t go there. It doesn’t matter how we met, that he’s my boss, and that I was sure we were destined to be enemies. Period. Not enemies to lovers. The equation was supposed to end there. I haven’t ever had a lover. A boyfriend, sure. Maybe even one that was borderline there, emotions-wise, but I’ve never plunged headlong into love.
This is just a kiss. He’s just asking to kiss me.
My hormones need to stop freaking out, and that burning and throbbing? It’s not just in my nipple anymore. It’s so numbed out that I can’t feel anything there. All the feeling has relocated between my legs.
Mont gets down on his knees right in front of the couch, which puts him at eye level. His eyes have a bright ring around the pupil, and it’s not all darkness and flecks. There’s more detail. There’s a list. A list of many, many reasons why and why not, but we don’t need to speak it.
When Mont leans forward, I meet him halfway, and our mouths crash together. My hands scrabble for his neck, and I tug him into me, hauling him onto the couch. He leans over me without crushing me, without touching my sore nipple at all. He still manages to get a knee between my legs while kissing me breathlessly, and I make room for him, canting my hips up into his. My dress hasn’t ridden up enough. There’s my fabric and his denim, and still, I can feel his hard bulge pressed up against my inner thigh. He kisses me deep into the couch, and I let him. I crave him. I want him.
He doesn’t taste the least bit like crab.
There’s a little bit of mint, but mostly, it’s all hot, hard, furious need, and man groans, his tongue on my tongue. I don’t know if he shaved while he was in the shower, but his skin feels so smooth against mine. No man beard stubble rash.
And then.
Oh god, and then his hands sweep over my jaw and bury themselves in my hair. He lifts my head away from the arm of the couch, changing the angle, kissing me deeper, and holding me exactly where he wants me so he can introduce fantastical lights and colors into my world. Most of them happen between my legs and not in my head, and all the stuff going on in my head isn’t mythical at all. It’s just us. Fantasies of us naked and me being brave enough to do a significant number of positions with this man. It’s my hands on his shirt, palms flattened along his shoulders and back so I can feel the strength and his heat below.
There’s a base level, an elemental rightness, the smallest epicenter that I’ve never given away and I’ve never had given to me. I’ve never needed or desired anyone like I need this man right now.
We’re not faking it. He sees me. He wants me. There are no strings, no conditions, no ulterior motives. It’s just two people who were supposed to be saying a sort of goodbye, farewell, and also have a good life. Things didn’t start on a positive note, but they were supposed to end that way.
This isn’t an ending. This doesn’t feel like let’s have some fun and call it a night, knowing we’ll never see each other again or that we don’t have to see each other again, and that’s the allure. It feels like a beginning.
A beginning of something neither of us have had or known before.
It’s not a bargain. It’s not an experiment. It’s not unbalanced. It’s not bartered or earned.
It’s that rawness, that sweet, simple truth. It’s the rightness that’s nearly impossible to find, even though we all think it should be so easy.
It’s two people who love crab and maybe even pudding. It’s two uncertain people finding certainty in each other, and it’s us giving ourselves up and entrusting them to each other. That is no small leap of faith. It’s a freaking giant.