Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 67465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
It all comes rushing back as soon as we break the kiss. Van pulls away, and we both gasp for air. If we didn’t want to suffocate, he needed to pull back. But I still want to grab him, climb on top of him, and kiss him breathless all over again.
“Oh…” I have to put my fingers to my lips. I’m shaking. Van is right beside me, and he’s trembling too. “Wow.” He looks pale. Scared. Not regretful. Instead, he’s looking at my lips like he wants to kiss me again. At least he’s not running for the door.
“Everyone hides their heart,” he rasps in a low whisper. His hands flex at his sides, by his knees, like he wants to reach for me but is physically holding himself back. “Everyone pretends. Why not you? Everyone has this end game, and everyone wants something. But not you. Why not you?”
I know he means it as a compliment, and not a backhanded one either. He’s not trying to insult me, and he just gave me the kiss to end all kisses, so I find it easier to answer him. “Believe me; I’m far from being faultless.” I turn around to look at the door, but it’s probably only six in the morning, and my parents won’t be awake for another six or seven hours. They might not do this often, but softball is something to party hard over.
“Maybe I’m not a plotter,” I continue, turning back to Van. “No one likes it when people are honest. That’s why they have that saying about being honest to a fault. The things I want—they might be so small and simple that everyone thinks I have no drive or ambition, and that’s okay, I guess. Because I know otherwise. But if the things I want aren’t grandiose, does it make them less important?” I can feel my lips quivering and my emotions rising to the surface. Goodness, isn’t that one heck of a tangled mess? I have no idea what I’m feeling right now. But it’s a lot. So, so much.
I just kissed Van. Really kissed him. And I was really kissed by him. It’s so monumental that I’m surprised the world isn’t turning to ash or falling down around us and that poets aren’t getting out their pens to write a song about it.
“What do you want?” He really wants to know. He’s asking me in that sweet voice of his, made raw by emotion. His eyes skim back over my lips, and I feel him down to my center. Not just that center but the center of me where everything is. It’s the feeling that you’ve known someone forever, and they’re a part of you. That center.
Alright, he’s so gorgeous under my ruined blinds with the sun starting to streak through the window and highlight the golden sparks in his eyes that I want to drag him to my bed and make him forget that anyone on this earth ever thought he was anything less than perfect. And a perfect sex god. When I finished with him, he would have zero doubts.
This is so not helping my soaking wet panty, throbbing clit, or tingling nipple situation one bit.
“I want to be happy. I want to be healthy and have my family and friends be healthy too. I want good things for them. I’d like a small house of my own, two cats, and maybe a dog. One day, probably some kids, and above all, a husband who adores me and who I adore. I’d like that to never change, not until we’re ancient and old, and even then, no matter what comes after, I’d still like to haunt him and have him haunt me. I don’t need tons of money, and I don’t need fancy crap. Oh, and Nanny. I’d really like her to last another hundred years because she’s amazing, and I have no grandparents of my own. I’d also like your sister to fall head over heels in love because she’s like a sister to me, and I want her to be happy. I want your mom to be happy, too, especially now that I know what she went through.
“My parents lost everything when I was younger, and they had to move to this house. This was basically paradise after the little apartment we had when things were getting sorted out. My mom cried every day, but then they got jobs, rebuilt their lives, and learned how to laugh again, and we were whole because we were together. We were a family. Nothing else was important. Anyway, that’s what I want for me.”
“With me?”
“Oh, Van…” I touch his hand and he doesn’t jerk it away. He does whip his eyes up to my face, though. “That was just a teenage crush. I’m not going to pretend that I don’t feel anything now because I do, but I don’t even know you as who you are now. I only have two kisses to go on. And I really, really liked them.”