Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
I lick his lips, shamelessly. “Don’t… Don’t stop.”
I feel my waist being squeezed and my hair being tugged at, making me realize that he’s got both his arms around me. Staring into my drugged eyes, he growls, “You sure about this?”
Which in turn makes me realize where my hands are — buried in his hair — and so I pull at his strands. “I’m gonna die if you don’t kiss me.”
He chuckles, which is more or less simply a puff of air, his chest moving. “Listen, I —”
I pull his hair even harder and undulate against him. “Fucking kiss me, Bandit, or I swear I’ll kill you before I die. And —”
He kisses me.
Good.
Probably because he got scared. Which is even better, because I wasn’t lying.
I’m aware, in a very vague way, that we’re moving.
That he’s begun to walk while still kissing me and sucking on my lip, nipping and biting. Something that I realize that I love. Him taking little bites out of my lips, making them sting in such a delicious way.
Hurting my mouth while making love to it.
But again, my happiness is short-lived.
Because he once again breaks the kiss. Plus I realize that I’m not even in his arms anymore.
That I’m lying on the bed and he’s hovering over me.
I frown. “W-what —”
He shushes me with a hard kiss and a bite, before he crawls away from my body and springs back to his feet, and restless, I come up on my elbows to see what he’s doing.
And when I see it, I immediately realize that breaking the kiss was the right idea.
I was being stupid. Selfish.
Because while I have seen him multiple times without his clothes on — well, without his shirt, but still — he hasn’t seen me yet.
He hadn’t seen me up until this point.
Up until this point, he had kept his eyes on my face only. He hadn’t gone down.
He is now though.
Now he’s looking at every part of me. From my disheveled braid to my flushed cheeks. My rapidly breathing chest and my jiggling tits. My hard, berry-colored nipples. My clavicles. My ribs, the curve of my belly. My thighs and calves.
The shiny thing around my ankle.
His gift.
From long ago.
His eyes fly back to me when he sees it.
Biting my lip, I tell him, “I thought you’d like it. Me wearing your gift for you.”
His Adam’s apple jumps and his eyes both flare and go up in flames.
Which means he likes it.
I wonder if he likes the other things though.
My naked body, for example.
I know that I’m pale. I know that I don’t have very many muscles to speak of. I have zero upper body strength, as evidenced by my lack of climbing skills. I’m basically a regular pale and soft bookworm.
And maybe, given that he’s a muscle god and an athlete, I should be embarrassed. I should probably ask him to turn out the lights. But not only has that ship sailed when I got naked in front of him, but also I think asking him to plunge me in shadows would be cruel.
It would be so, so unbearably cruel to him.
Because he’s eating me up with his eyes. He’s devouring me with them. Much like he was devouring me with his mouth and his hands.
And just like when he was kissing me, his body is all heated right now.
I can feel it from here.
The heat radiating out of his skin. The need.
Raw and sexual and animalistic.
So that his whole frame is vibrating.
His whole towering body is taut and shaking and shuddering with his breaths.
Fisting the sheets, I call out, “Reign?”
His eyes shoot back to mine. “You’re…”
I wrinkle my nose. “Too pink?”
A puff of breath escapes him. “Fucking beautiful.”
I blush. “Yeah?”
He swallows again. “Even more than I imagined.”
I swallow too. “And you imagined a lot.”
“Yeah.”
The lump in my throat grows bigger. “M-me too.”
God, it’s such a relief to admit that. Such a relief to not fight with myself. To not push these things down. And I’m glad I told him. So glad.
Because I see emotions passing through his features.
Shock. Wonder. Disbelief. Relief.
That he’s not the only one.
He’s not.
He’s so not alone in his pain.
“You did, huh?” he rasps, his fingers fisting.
“Yes. You’re the… You’re the first guy I ever thought was sexy.” I smile shyly at him. “I didn’t even know the meaning of sexy before that.”
Another puff of breath, this time accompanied with an arrogant tilt of his lips. “And I didn’t know the meaning of beautiful. Until I saw you in those woods that night.”
Oh God.
Oh my fucking God.
I fist the sheets tighter. “Reign —”
“You weren’t kidding,” he gulps again. “About what you want me to do.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Because I didn’t wanna look,” he says, roving his eyes over my body once again. “At you.”
“Why not?”
“Until I looked, I could pretend…” He licks his lips. “I could pretend that it wasn’t real. That it wasn’t you that I was touching. Although who the fuck was I kidding, it was you. No one… has ever felt like you but I… Maybe, just maybe, I could survive this, you understand? If I didn’t look. But now I have. Now I have seen you. Now I’m…” Another swallow. “Seeing you and you’re… the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. You’re made of moondust and sugar and… If you back down now, I’ll —”