Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
“We’re going to be okay,” he says, and it’s with such conviction that, for some reason, I believe him. “We’ll get to know each other in…uh, other ways too. We’ll be friends, and we can take our time with anything else. Friends above all and united by the love of our families and our child.”
I’ve never been very good at hope or keeping my options open, but I want to work on that. “I’m willing to try if you are.” I can’t help it. I have to touch him, so I cup his cheek in my palm, his warm, stubbled, bristled cheek. I revel in his warmth. The realness. The goodness. “But if you think that I want to stop what we’ve been doing, you’re crazy. I don’t think I can. Not when you look like you do.”
“Would a paper bag help?”
“Not unless you put it over my head to blind me, but I don’t think that would work. My memory is too good.” I smooth my thumb over his lips. As though he can’t stand to not taste me, his lips part, and his tongue licks at my fingers. Just that touch of his tongue sends electricity racing through me. “There are precious few guys that my dad would accept at my side. There aren’t many out there with the particular skill set he’d want them to have. He’d want them to have the balls not to be afraid of him or the brothers. They’d also have to be loyal, have good defense skills, be able to kick serious ass in order to protect me, and have advanced weapons training. For safety reasons only, of course.” Smoke’s eyes close, and he sucks my thumb into his mouth. I swear, I just about fall off the bed. I let out a gasp and rush on to say what I have to say before I forget it all and before my words get sucked into the swirling vortex of heat building up inside. “I’ve never met anyone like you. Ever. That night, I only talked to you because my friend dared me, but it kind of feels like it was meant to be.”
His tongue rolls over my thumb, and he pulls back to draw my finger out of his mouth before placing a hot, wet kiss on the inside of my palm. That shouldn’t be so erotic. Seriously. There is now spit on my palm, but then he rubs his chin over that same spot, burning me with his whiskers, and holy yum, okay, that’s really, really hot in a really base kind of way. I like base. Base is good.
“Maybe you saw me, and you wanted me,” he drawls lazily, his eyes hooded and dark with passion.
“Okay, I was attracted to you. Obviously, to your humility above all.”
He grins at me and brushes his lips over the inside of my tender palm again, tickling my sensitive skin and sending jolts of pleasure racing up my arm. He makes me feel alive. Just being in the same room with him makes me feel truly, utterly shaken. Until I met him, I might as well have been sleepwalking my way through my zombie life because this…this is what it feels like to be truly alive.
“We need to get to know each other properly,” he says and then licks at me wickedly again, running his tongue sensually over my palm and flicking it over the inside of my wrist.
“What did you have in mind?” I ask hopefully.
He raises his brows and looks at me from under those hooded lids with his deep gray eyes and massive pupils. I’m so sure he’s going to say something wicked that I’m bracing myself against the wave of heat I know is going to crash over me.
“Twenty questions?”
“What?” I’m sure that’s not a new sex game. If it were a sex game, it would be called twenty positions.
“Twenty questions? Like what people used to play in childhood. That would help us get to know each other.”
I swat at him playfully, batting him on the chin, but he catches my hand and kisses it again. He doesn’t stop until he’s kissed all the way up my arm and over my clothes, and he doesn’t stop there, either. He raises his head and plants a kiss on my lips. A hard kiss that gradually softens until I’m warm and gooey with it.
“I should grab you by the balls and stretch them all the way up until they wrap around your neck, then press them there until you black out for teasing me like that.”
“Oh! That sounds exciting. But you’ll need to clarify if I’m blacking out from the pain in my balls or from a lack of oxygen.”
“Both?”
“Sounds delightful.”
I roll my eyes and giggle. This could have gone so many different ways, but I’m so glad it didn’t. It’s going this way, and it’s always going to be our choice. I have to remember that. Our actions, our attitudes, and how we tackle things. That’s on us.