Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
We eat sushi to round off our main course before moving on to share our desserts: tonka bean ice cream infused with cherry blossom leaves and a deliciously light chestnut tart. I don’t put up a fight this time, and our dinner passes in a blur of polite interruptions, delicious sake pairings, and carefully curated conversation.
And then it ends. And we walk hand in hand back to the suite, under a velvet curtain of twinkling stars. It’s not quite the perfect ending, until the door closes quietly behind us.
“I might not be able to cook your dinner,” Fin purrs, backing me up against the wood no sooner than it’s closed. “But I hope I’ve showed you a good time.”
I shiver, need blooming deep inside me, my eyes fluttering closed as his lips lightly brush mine.
“Dinner?” I swallow, my voice already husky with need. “You can’t even scramble an egg,” I tease, pressing my hands behind me, mainly to hide how they shake. I want this so badly. Need to feel him over me, owning me, making me forget what’s to come.
Parting is such sweet sorrow?
No, parting just hurts. Even when you know it needs to be that way.
“That’s true,” he agrees as he presses his forearm above my head. He stares down at me with such incitement as he begins to slowly flip open the buttons on my dress. One, two . . . five—he flicks the sides open all the way to my waist.
He gives one of the many smiles in his arsenal, this one seductive, the kind that probably moistens underwear in a five-mile radius. Fin DeWitt could seriously be my undoing.
If only I could let him.
Since our conversation the day before yesterday, I’ve played his words over and over again in my head. What if he wasn’t trying to wangle a situationship? What if he was being serious? About being serious?
Did I get it wrong that day in the outdoor shower? Was I not clear, or did he deceive me? It’s not like I asked him to sign a contract or swear his allegiance to singledom.
Imagine if I’d asked him to promise not to make things complicated?
Hey, Fin, I’ll fake marry you, but you’ve got to promise not to fall in love with me, m’kay?
He probably would’ve laughed in my face.
Not that it matters, because it’s just the setting that makes things feel like this. It’s the magic of the island keeping reality at arm’s length. Our close confines that muddy thoughts and skew feelings. I tell myself that if Fin had felt any sort of attraction to me, he would’ve sought me out after our closet interlude.
“What is it?” he whispers, staring down at me.
“I was just thinking you can’t scramble an egg but you can certainly scramble my brain.”
With a throaty chuckle, he lowers his head, his mouth meeting mine, this time in a slow, teasing kiss. I twine my arms around his neck, my head tipping back as he shifts, the tenor of his kiss changing. His lips chart every inch of mine, his tongue encouraging me to open wider, to accept the seductive brush of it.
“This mouth,” he whispers, but he doesn’t finish his thought as his broad palm slides up my body: hip, ribs, the side of my breast. His thumb coasts across my nipple, the nub tightening under that tiny press.
I whisper his name as I pull him closer, my breasts aching and heavy as all those feel-good potions begin to swim through my veins. He’s my champagne wish and caviar dreamboat. A dream, not because he’s a little bit posh or too rich for my tastes, but because I just can’t afford him in my life.
“I love how you touch me,” I whisper boldly. “How your big hands hold me. You make me feel like I’m yours.”
“You are mine,” he says, pulling back. The low light turns his face all angles and shadows. “You’re my wife.”
“Only for tonight.”
His jaw flexes, his tone low and husky. “Better make it memorable, then.”
As if I could ever forget. As if I ever will. It’s like he’s carved away a piece of me that I’ll never get back. But for now, I’m all his and he’s mine, and we feel it everywhere. Skin touching skin.
“Pretty,” he murmurs as his fingertip charts the scalloped edge of my bra, his eyes following the motion.
“I’m glad you think so. Matching knickers too.”
“So I see.”
“Though I think it was unfair of you to only return them to me in exchange for a kiss.”
“A kiss per pair.”
“Opportunist.”
A pulse thrums in his throat as his touch coasts down the valley between my breasts. “Ingenious. Fuck, Mila. You’re truly beautiful.”
My chest heaves, my body straining closer, my sighs all desire and building desperation. I want him to hold me, bend me. I want his rough whispers in my ear and his thick solidness between my legs. I want him to touch me everywhere, and all at once. And then I want to do it all over again until I forget that tonight is all we have.