Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 109777 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109777 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
I did a quick check of the fridge. Fruit, a bag of coffee, carton of creamer, and a few more odds and ends. Alice was the best. “Alice left us some snacks and coffee. I’m just upstairs. Call if you need anything.”
Hope nodded, so deep in her own head I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Acting on instinct, I wrapped my arms around her, holding her against my body for a long moment. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to figure this out, Hope.”
She nodded against my chest, relaxing into me just enough for more words to loosen in my chest and come spilling out. “I’m sorry about earlier. In the hall. I was an asshole.”
She shook her head in denial. It shouldn’t have annoyed me. It did anyway. “You were right,” she said in a tiny voice I could barely hear.
“You killed Prentice?” I asked, trying to get her to smile.
“I kind of wish I had,” she whispered. “But you were right about the rest.”
The bitch of it was I had been right. So what? Did it even matter now? I couldn’t get my head, my heart, around the split. I was right, she was wrong. This was my vindication. Why didn’t I want it? Why couldn’t I just let her off the hook?
Her slight body against mine, the curve of her waist under my hand, the heat of her breath through my shirt all made it more complicated. Since when did I want Hope Daniels? My body didn’t give a shit about the past, about the bad choices she’d made as a teenager. My body wanted the adult woman in my arms, the woman who’d been my friend, today and all those years ago.
I had the terrifying feeling it was more than my body talking here. I had no fucking clue what to do with that. Since I left Sawyers Bend, my heart shattered, I hadn’t given it to any woman. I had my friends, male and female, and I had women I saw socially. I didn’t do relationships. I never went looking for forever.
I’d learned firsthand—forever was a lie. Seeing my friends all fall in love over the last few years hadn’t shaken my basic belief that I was better off going through life alone. Now I was married, and I’d be faithful to Hope, but it was only temporary. None of this was real.
My head was upside down. My body knew what it wanted. My arms tightened around Hope, plastering her to me, absorbing her heat, her warm apples and cinnamon scent. Lowering my head, I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, wishing I could erase everything that had happened in the hall, the ugly words I’d spoken, the cruel tease of that almost-kiss.
“Rest up. If you need anything, call me, okay?”
“I will,” she promised.
Unable to resist, I tilted her face up to mine. Her eyes gazed past my ear, refusing to make contact, a faint flush coloring her cheeks. I hadn’t even kissed her and she was already warming to me, her body melting into mine, her tongue sneaking out to lick her lips.
Slow, I reminded myself.
I meant to listen. I did. But the second my mouth touched hers, I forgot all about slow. Her soft lips parted, her tongue shyly brushing mine, that little gasp of pleasure kerosene on the flame of my need. I was hungry for her, greedy, and her mouth met mine, just as greedy, with just as much raw need.
I could be rational, sensible when I didn’t have my hands on her. Now? With her breasts pressed to my chest, her hips rolling into me in a movement so instinctive I doubted she knew what she was doing—rational was out the window.
I was a breath away from throwing her over my shoulder and showing her how much pleasure I could give her when I realized she was shaking. A bolt of fear drowned my arousal. Had I scared her? Had she tried to stop me and I missed it?
No. Her eyes were glazed with lust, her body trembling. Not with fear, but with too much sensation.
She’s a virgin, you fuckhead, I reminded myself. What happened to slow?
She was responsive as hell, and she wanted me, but she had no clue how to handle what her body needed. I rubbed my palm roughly up and down her back with a long sigh. She shook against me, her face buried against my neck, cheeks hot on my skin.
“You okay?”
“A little tired and a lot freaked out,” she said with more honesty than I’d expected.
“You want me to stop kissing you?” I asked, my breath freezing in my lungs as soon as the question was out.
What if she said yes?
Her head shook in a negative. Thank fuck. I might have wept tears of frustrated disappointment if she’d said yes.