Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
I didn’t realize how badly I needed a pep talk until I heard the words coming out of his mouth.
I loved my brothers more than life, but they just… they weren’t those guys. I guess that was my fault, to an extent. I’d been like their parental figure. I’d been the one to give the pep talks. They’d never needed to do the emotional lifting, so they never thought to do it. Even when I was in a bad situation and desperately needed to hear that it was going to be okay.
“Hey, no, don’t do that,” Massimo said, frowning as I saw my vision start to swim with tears.
He didn’t seem horrified at the tears. Like most of the guys I’d known would have been. But, then again, he had a sister he loved dearly. Which, I imagined, subjected him to more than a few instances of witnessing female tears over the years.
“I just… I needed to hear that,” I told him as the first tear slid down my cheek.
“Well, I can’t go around giving you a pep talk if you fucking cry about it,” he told me, giving me a soft smile as his hand lifted to wipe the tear off my face just as it was about to slip off my chin.
“Thank you for saying those things.”
“Wouldn’t say them if I didn’t mean them,” he insisted. “You’re going to get through this. You’re stronger than you are giving yourself credit for,” he said as his thumb slide from my chin to trace under my lower lip.
The strange swelling sensation in my chest made the tears start to dissipate, replaced with something else entirely.
Something much more heated.
Something that felt like it was scorching its way through my system.
I saw the same heat reflected back at me as I looked at Massimo.
I didn’t think.
I couldn’t have even if I wanted to.
And I really, really didn’t want to.
In fact, the absolute last thing I wanted to do in that moment was think.
I wanted to feel.
Damn the possible consequences.
And the potential psych evaluation I was going to need when I came to my senses and realized what I was about to do with a man who’d killed someone who’d once meant something to me.
Moving up on my tiptoes, I sealed my lips to his.
There wasn’t even a second of hesitation before his lips were coming alive, before they were pressing harder, demanding more.
The last kiss had been epic. Spontaneous. Exciting. And devoid of the expectation of anything else at all.
This, though, this was different.
Maybe especially so because of the vulnerability I’d been feeling, because of the words he’d said to bolster me up, because of the tension of the day and the uncertainty of the day and a half before.
And, of course, because I didn’t have a single intention of stopping.
This time, I expected more.
I wanted everything.
To hell with the consequences or possible regrets.
I wanted this.
Him.
I wanted him.
My hands were greedy then, sliding up his arms, over his strong chest, then down his stomach.
His hands framed my face as he deepened the kiss, as he walked me back a few steps until my back hit the wall, trapping me.
As if I ever wanted to escape.
It was Massimo, though, who managed to hold onto a shred of self-control, who pulled back.
“We can’t do this,” he said, voice thick with desire.
“Yes, we can,” I objected, leaning upward to press my lips to his neck. And despite his objections, his chin raised, giving me more room to explore.
He hadn’t shaved.
His stubble felt foreign against my exploring lips.
“Cammie… I’m trying to do the right thing here,” he insisted.
“Don’t. Don’t do the right thing,” I said as my teeth nipped his earlobe. “Can we just be wrong? Just for a little bit?”
“You don’t—“
“Don’t. Don’t tell me what I should want or what I do want. I’m tired of being told what to think or feel,” I told him as my lips traced down his jaw toward his mouth. “I know what I want. I want you,” I told him as my lips hovered over his.
A low groan escaped him just before his lips crashed down on mine.
There was no soft or sweet.
His lips were fierce and hungry, and I found my own just as impatient, just as needy.
It had been so long since I felt anything even akin to desire. I’d almost started to believe that I had lost the ability, that it had somehow died with the shock and the uncertainty and the disgust that came with my life the past several years.
Massimo proved in a moment, though, that I had nothing to worry about, that my desire was not missing, just buried, and waiting for the right guy to uncover it.
We could debate why the right guy was also the guy who’d killed my old boyfriend some other time when Massimo’s hands weren’t getting greedy.