Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 121764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
His lips were so big, so warm, firm in their insistence, but soft in their execution. He kissed me long and slow, and then in a feverish frenzy, his tongue sending jolts of electricity straight between my legs with every swipe against my own.
And it wasn’t just his mouth that was magic — it was his hands, his arms, his thigh pressing between my own. He didn’t kiss me with only his lips. He touched me, squeezed me, ground against me like we were fucking with our clothes on.
It was the kiss to end all kisses, the kind that marked you like a tattoo, like a scar.
And it ended on a curse, Jaxson’s hands sliding back up to cradle my face — except this time, he held me still, his hands trembling a bit as he pressed his forehead against mine.
I wet my lips, fingertips curling in the sleeves of his t-shirt. I held onto his biceps and pulled, trying to get him to touch me again, to meet my desperate rolls against his body with his own, to let me tilt my chin up enough for our lips to touch once more.
But he blew out a hot breath through his nose, shaking his head.
“We should go,” he croaked out.
Three words. Three words that ripped through me like rusty scissor blades.
He winced as he released me, and my body shook at the loss of heat, at the loss of him.
Oh, God.
The realization of what we’d just done swept through me in a bolt of anxiety.
Jaxson swiped his hat and mask off the ground, tugging the ballcap on backward like he was angry with it. I half-expected him to just leave me there, horny and panting for him in the middle of a throbbing crowd, but he forced a deep breath before calmly, gently, taking me by the hand.
He made a path through the crowd toward the parking lot, tugging me along behind him in a daze.
I could feel so many emotions rolling off of him — regret, guilt, fear. But all of that was overpowered by what I felt burning through his touch the most.
Desire.
His body was still humming with the same energy mine was.
That wasn’t just a kiss. That was unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my fucking life, and I knew without asking that it had been the same for him.
Right?
God, I needed to hear it. I needed him to look at me, to tell me it wasn’t just me who felt that. I needed him to hold me. I needed him to kiss me, to touch me.
Whatever line existed between us, we hadn’t just crossed it — we’d plowed over it, running so fast and so far it might as well have never existed to begin with.
Only one question existed as we climbed back into the SUV and headed toward St. Louis.
What now?
Bend the Rules
Jaxson
The nicest hotel I could find us in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, in the middle of the night was the DoubleTree. I threw my card down for two rooms next to each other, scrubbing a hand over my face as my heart still raced in my chest.
I was pretty sure it would never beat the same again after kissing Grace Tanev.
I swallowed, internally groaning because fuck, I was a stupid sonofabitch. It was one thing to toe the line with her, to flirt and know she was flirting back, to shamelessly check her out knowing she did the same to me. We were attracted to each other. We had been since the first time we met.
But until tonight, we hadn’t acted on it.
Until tonight, we hadn’t known what we were missing.
It had all been fun and games.
Until tonight.
Grace had been unusually quiet on the hour car ride to the hotel. She’d put on a mellow playlist, a mix of artists like Tame Impala and The Alchemist, but she hadn’t sung along or danced in her seat like usual.
She’d sat there perfectly still, her hands folded in her lap.
That did nothing to ease my anxiety. I’d gripped the steering wheel like it was the desire I had pooling in my gut for her and I could somehow strangle it to death. My hands still ached from it, and I stretched them out before taking the key cards from the receptionist.
“And here are your cookies,” she said with a smile, taking two from the warmer and handing one to each of us.
Grace lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.
“Cookies! I forgot you did that!” She unwrapped hers instantly, inhaling deep before she took a ginormous bite. She moaned as she chewed it, eyes fluttering shut. “Hnggg, sho’guuud.”
She opened her eyes and smiled up at me next, chocolate in her teeth.
And I laughed.
It was the biggest relief, how my chest unlocked itself and let that sound through. Grace looked like she’d just won the lottery with that fucking cookie and my laugh that came with it, like she’d been dying to break the tension as much as I had.