Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“It won’t mean you didn’t rob me of being on your team this time,” she whispered.
His chest dove inward. “I’m sorry.”
“I believe that. I do. But I’m not putting myself out there again.”
“That’s not what I’ve been told.” Broken glass scraped the inner walls of his chest, ravaging him at having to say this out loud. “I hear there’s some Sagittarius professor interested in you? Is that true? Are you . . . dating him? Because I’ve been waking up from nightmares about seeing you with another man for over a month.” He ground his molars together so hard, he swore he could taste blood. “God help me, if you’d brought him, I’d have killed him.”
Genuine perplexity created a crease between her brows. “A professor gave me his number, yes, but I didn’t use it. Do you think I could just jump into something else after . . .” A line drive of relief clocked him in the center of his forehead and he wanted more, wanted to hear she was still stuck on him, the way he’d always be stuck on her, but she gave a jagged shrug, her next words escaping in a rush. “Look, I don’t owe you an explanation. I appreciate your apology and I . . . hear everything you’re saying, but I think we’ll be better as friends.”
Burgess observed her with so much intensity, it was a wonder she didn’t drop. After several moments of silence, he nodded slowly. “Guess you need to be proven wrong.” He continued forward until she was sandwiched between him and the building, his nerve endings stretching and groaning back to life just to be touching her again. “And forgive me for saying so, gorgeous,” he rasped against her ear. “But if you didn’t want to be proven wrong, if you just wanted to be my friend, I don’t think you’d have worn a dress so short I barely need to lift the hem to get my cock inside of you.”
I love you. And I’m sorry I was heartless with you.
I felt weak and I only wanted you to see me as strong.
That confession sent moisture rushing to her eyes, even as the filth he spoke into her ear made her inner thighs draw together, squeezing. It was too much at once. He was too much at once, and the tide of emotions she’d been furiously stemming for a month and a half came breaking through the dam, busting the sucker wide open.
His breath on the side of her face sent heat snaking down the sensitive side of her neck, making her breasts fuller, achy, so painfully sensitive that her back arched on its own, her stiffening nipples rubbing side to side against his thickly muscled chest, her breath stuttering in thanksgiving over the friction she’d been seeking without finding for interminable weeks. Oh God, the grief and desperation of it sucked her under like a riptide and she gasped for air, calling for his mouth without saying actual words. But he knew.
Burgess rubbed his open lips right to left on top of hers, leaving a wet mess, and she moaned over the carnality of it, the kind she’d never had with anyone else. The animal freedom of clawing and taking and straining and whining. How could she have ignored the need for it for a whole six weeks? The broken heart must have wiped away her ability to do anything but survive.
“I love you, Tallulah,” he said, kissing her hard and looking her in the eye with enough intensity to seize her lungs. “I’m just making sure you heard me.”
“I heard you,” she breathed.
“How do you feel about that?”
“I don’t know. I’m overwhelmed.”
Those two words made his forehead pucker, eyes clenching as if in pain. “No. No, gorgeous. Overwhelmed by what?”
“How much I missed you touching me. I can’t breathe. I can’t . . . I need you, but I don’t want to have to decide what it means.”
He made a grating sound, like her admission had bought him a stay of execution, but he wasn’t sure if he should take it. “You’ve got me. I’m here to give you what you need. Tell me what it is,” he demanded, licking a moist path up the side of her neck, following the trail back down with a rake of teeth that made her inner walls cinch up like a drawn shoelace. “Do you want me to fuck you?”
Tallulah’s body moved on instinct, turning to face the wall and flattening her palms against it, moving her backside on top of the hardness that had been growing since their lips touched. Maybe before. “Yes, yes, I want that.”
She moaned as her panties were wrenched down to midthigh, his palm skimming roughly up and down the fronts of her legs. Higher.
Slowly, his middle finger pushed down through the soaked valley of her flesh, a second finger joining immediately, pleasing her in thorough circles, his breath hot against her right temple. “Going to use my fingers to get you ready for cock, Tallulah.”