Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
“Please don’t make me run home.”
This is a turn out for the books. She’s begging. I should use this to my advantage. The Manor anniversary stamps its way across my mind. Two weeks.
“You did better than I expected.”
“I prefer sleepy sex,” she moans, plummeting to my chest. I smile. I can’t argue with that.
“I prefer sleepy sex too.” I agree quietly. I should have thought this through. “Come on, lady. We can’t frolic in the grass all day; you have work to do.” I can’t wait to watch her all day. Seeing her mind whirl with ideas, her hand working fast across the page as she sketches. It’ll make being at The Manor today far more tolerable.
She struggles to her feet, and I join her, pulling her into my side and walking us across the road. I spot a cab and wave it down.
“You brought money for a taxi?” she asks, sounding injured as I get us in the back. I pull her onto my lap and give her a taste of what’s to come. Of course, she’s all mine in a second, taking my mouth hungrily. The temptation to stop the cab, throw the driver out, and bomb it to Lusso is too much. Put your foot down! “Enough,” I mumble around her frantic mouth, but she doesn’t let up, rubbing into me in places she shouldn’t be rubbing into me right now.
“Fuck,” I growl, pushing her off me, trying to catch a breath. She flops into the seat beside me, equally as breathless. “You’re seriously getting it when I get you home.”
The corner of her lip lifts as she pulls her running top away, trying to circulate some air. “Can’t wait,” she pants, breathless.
“Don’t goad me, lady.”
“Don’t torment me, then.” She gazes out of the window, and I observe her with untold pleasure as she watches the world go by, my elbow wedged into the door, the inside of my finger brushing across my top lip. Torment? I smile, but it’s sad. She knows nothing of true torment. The sun has always hovered on the horizon of my existence, tormenting me with hopeful light. Now, it feels like it could drop out of the sky at any moment and cloud me in darkness forever. Or, equally as frightening, rise and shine a light on all of my wrongs.
* * *
By the time we reach the penthouse, urgency is a vise around my cock, screaming to be relieved. Ava drops to a stool heavily, her breathing still labored, and that urgency throbbing inside subsides at the sight of her so shattered. She doesn’t run like I run. She doesn’t need to.
It would be easy to toss her on the counter and ravage her. Get my fix. Fuck away this unsettling feeling within. But I abstain. It takes everything in me, but I abstain. She looks good for nothing, except maybe a lovely hot bath. She can lie all over me. Catch her breath.
Agree to come to The Manor’s anniversary party with me.
I fill a glass with water and pass it across the counter. “Here.”
She chugs it down at an epic rate, not even coming up for air.
“I’ll run a bath.” I collect her from the stool, smiling when she engulfs me with every limb, finding just enough energy to cling to me.
I make my way slowly up the stairs and set her neatly on the bed. “I don’t have time for a bath,” she says. “I’ll have a shower.”
“You have plenty of time.” All day, in fact, and I cannot wait to spend it with her. “We’ll grab some breakfast and go to The Manor mid-morning. Now, stretch.” I press my lips into her sweaty forehead and linger for a while, before I push myself up and head for the bathroom, naturally chewing on my bottom lip as I go, waiting for the fireworks to explode, my shoulders high in preparation. I flip on the taps and pour in some bath soak. Will she challenge me? Refuse? I swish the water, creating masses of bubbles.
“Jesse, I need to go to the office,” she calls, sounding uncharacteristically timid. She’s worried that I was serious when I hijacked her diary.
I was. “No, you don’t,” I call back. She will not win this one. Besides, I have an appointment. Doesn’t she want to spend the day with me? And it’s Friday. It’ll get my weekend off to the best start. I smile, excited at the prospect of three whole days indulging in her. In us. “Stretch.”
There’s silence for a few beats, but just when I think—and hope—she’s relented, she speaks up, albeit quietly. It’s the voice of someone who knows they’re fighting a losing battle. “All of my equipment is at the office. My computer programs, reference books, everything.”
I wander to the door and lean against the frame, finding her looking small in my big bed. Small and nervous. “And you need all that stuff?” I ask.