Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
“There’s an iceberg ahead.” She hooked her heels around my thighs and her wrists around my neck.
“Someone has to leave.” I kissed her, slow and deep. Then I picked up my head and looked down at her in the dark. “But it’s still real, in the moment. You can still feel it. Just because it won’t last forever doesn’t mean it never existed at all.”
“Dash,” she whispered, her palm on the side of my face.
I swallowed hard. My heart felt like a balloon inflating in my chest. “Yes?”
“If I ever get married, you are not to give any kind of toast.”
By the time her words registered in my brain, she was giggling. Quickly, I turned her onto her stomach, pinning her hands behind her back. “Are you making fun of me getting in touch with my feelings?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, squirming and laughing beneath me. “It just popped into my head! That was good emotional depth! You’re two for two today!”
I shimmied down her legs, clamping them together with my knees, and nipped her ass with my teeth, making her shriek. “Apologize again.”
“I’m sorry!” she squealed.
I bit her again, not too hard, just enough to make a point. “Again.”
“I’m sorry,” she said breathlessly.
“Now tell me I can say whatever I want at your wedding.” I rubbed my jaw over the spot on her skin where my teeth had been.
“What would you say?”
“I’d tell whatever clown you were marrying he doesn’t deserve you.”
She laughed. “How do you know he doesn’t deserve me?”
“I just know.” I kissed my way around the curve of one hip.
“What if he’s, like, a prince or something?”
Taking her by the wrists, I placed her hands above her head and stretched out on top of her back. “He’s not.”
“Fine. I won’t marry him.”
Pushing back, I got to my knees and hitched up her hips in front of me, eyeing her perfect body with hungry delight. The soft pink of her pussy. The inviting seam from her closed thighs all the way up the crack of her ass. I licked my fingers and slid them between her legs, rubbing her slowly. Then I fisted my cock and teased her with the tip. “Good girl.”
TWENTY
ari
“So about this weekend,” Dash said on the drive to Snowberry Lodge. “How do you want to handle it?”
“You mean us?”
“Yeah.” He glanced at me. “Do you want to be open about us or keep things under wraps?”
There’s an us, I thought. There’s actually an us. He said so. “What do you mean by open?” I asked, sixteen-year-old me hoping he might say something about announcing our engagement.
“I guess I mean staying together. You in my room.”
I bit my lip. “I’m supposed to stay with Mabel.”
“I know, but she already knows about us. I doubt she’d care.”
“What if your dad or your niece and nephew realize I’m sleeping in your room and ask why?”
“I’m pretty sure my dad knows something is up between us, but there’s no pressure. If it makes you uncomfortable, stay with Mabel.” He reached over and took my hand. “I’m just being selfish with you, since I only have a few days left. We’ll still have Sunday night.”
“Right.” I was trying not to think about it. Every time I imagined saying goodbye, my stomach hurt.
Which was stupid. I’d always known this had an end date. And less than twenty-four hours ago, he’d told me without actually telling me that this was not going to last.
Even if it felt like love.
The words had been on the tip of my tongue last night—actually, who was I kidding? Where Dash was concerned, they’d been on the tip of my tongue since I was twelve years old. It was a miracle I’d made it to twenty-four without blurting them out. But I’d chickened out at the last second and made a joke instead. I was too scared that he would think I was trying to pressure him into making promises he clearly didn’t want to make.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t been paying attention. I understood this was just a fling. I’d accepted the fact that he’d never be mine. We’d never belong to each other. Our lives were too different. Our bodies might have been in perfect harmony, but our dreams were not.
We would always be in each other’s lives, even if it was never like this again.
Just friends.
It would have to be enough.
Dash and I arrived at Snowberry Lodge just after four o’clock on Friday afternoon. It was hard not to let my fantasies run a little wild as he held the door to the lobby open for me—if we were a real couple, this is what it would feel like to take a weekend away together.
While Dash checked in at the desk, I texted Mabel.
YAY! We’re room 304. Come on up.
Sounds good. Is there a plan for tonight?