Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 34309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 172(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 172(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Freya didn’t care that if her father was still alive, he might look down on her doing something like this. But as soon as that thought passed through her mind, she knew her father never would have looked down on anything she did. He’d always been so supportive and understanding. He would have been of this, too, as long as she was happy.
Freya didn’t know if Elijah would kiss her, but she desperately wanted him to. She saw the way he kept looking at her lips, felt the way he kept stroking her cheek with his thumb. When he leaned in, she thought he’d kiss her and end this torment of arousal and need she had burning inside her, but he didn’t.
Instead, he moved the hand that held her face to the back of her head. He tunneled his fingers into her hair, then tightened his hold on the strands until the pain mixed with her already climbing and repressed pleasure, and then broke free into this explosive tingling sensation along her entire body.
“A part of me sees this as wrong on some level,” he murmured, staring at her lips. “But I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop, Freya. I love you, so fucking much, and I won’t deny it.”
She breathed out harshly.
“I just want to get lost in you, to forget about that time we lived in the same house and dealt with a woman who wasn’t meant to be in our lives.”
She licked her lips, knowing he was right and not caring or wanting to stop either.
“You have no idea how much I want you right now, how I felt when I first saw you after all these years.”
She held her breath, looked into his green eyes, and felt her heart skip a beat.
“I felt like I was looking at something I’d been missing, if that even makes sense.”
She nodded. “It makes perfect sense, Elijah.” She’d felt this recognition and electricity move through her when she’d seen him. It was a feeling of comfort that had nothing to do with already knowing him. He’d been in a suit, looking so good, so smart, and sophisticated. He’d looked so powerful and controlled, and something in her had woken up. It had been uncomfortable, but also pleasing, in a way.
His lips were so close to hers that if he just leaned forward that last couple of inches that separated them, they’d be kissing. Freya felt desperate for him.
“I want to kiss you,” he said in a low, deep voice, “and although I’ve kissed you many times already, I feel like I should go slow.”
“I don’t want slow, not anymore,” she said right after he spoke. It was like neither seemed to breathe at that moment.
She closed her eyes as a gust of stuttering air left her. God, she didn’t think she’d even been this aroused. She felt like she’d combust right now in front of Elijah.
Her heart was thundering, and she swore her wetness soaked clean through her panties. He was so much bigger than her five-foot-four height, nearly a whole foot taller it seemed. His muscles were also so pronounced, so defined.
“You haven’t kissed me yet.” Although she wasn’t talking about in general, but right now it felt like she’d never kissed him before. That was how much she wanted him. She felt how hard he was for her, how aroused.
“I haven’t.” He stared in her eyes.
She swallowed. “I want you to, right now. I want to be with you,” she whispered.
“I won’t stop until you’re mine irrevocably, Freya.”
Oh. My. God.
She wanted to tell him she wanted him to cross that line, too, but the words lodged in her throat. Freya found that nerve, grabbed it, and just spoke out. “I want you, Elijah.”
“Christ.” And then he had his mouth on hers, and his tongue speared between her lips.
She wasn’t kissing a man who had once been married to her stepmother, or a man so much older than she was. She was kissing a man who wanted her as much as she wanted him.
She was kissing Elijah, the man she loved.
He slid his hands down her shoulders, over her arms, and gripped her waist tightly. And then he was walking them backward until she felt the cold, hard wall greeted her, and the heat from the fire right beside them moving through her clothing.
He hadn’t broken the kiss, and the deep rumbles that left him had her inner muscles clenching almost painfully. He opened his mouth wider and deepened the kiss, then he moved his hands down her thighs, grabbed the dress, and bunched it in his fists. He started to slowly lift it, but he stopped far too soon.
“Tell me you want this, that this is okay and I’m not going too fast,” he murmured against her mouth, and all she could do was nod. “I need you to tell me, Freya.” He sounded pained as he murmured against her lips but also frantic with his need.