Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
My hair was plastered to the side of my face. Pushing it off, I rolled over to my back. “Wow.”
Bennett pushed up on an elbow and stared down at me. He leaned over for a gentle kiss, then rubbed my bottom lip with his thumb. “Thank fuck that ex of yours is a dumbass and had no idea what you liked.”
I smiled a goofy smile. “I don’t think I knew either.”
He kissed me again. “It’s my absolute pleasure to help you figure that out.”
“I just did my first booty call.” I wiggled my eyebrows.
Bennett laughed. “Pretty damn appropriate name right about now, don’t you think?”
Chapter 37
* * *
Bennett
Content.
For the last half hour, I’d been lying here trying to figure out the last time I’d felt this feeling. If someone had asked me a few months ago, I would have said I felt it every time I had sex—that post-orgasmic relaxation that takes over your body. But I would’ve been wrong.
That was sated. I hadn’t realized until now that there was even a difference between feeling sated and content. But there is—a damn big one. Sated is that satisfied feeling you get after a good meal when you were starving. Or when you’re horny as shit and you get a release that drains the life out of you. Sure, I was drained right now; don’t get me wrong. And I also felt satisfied. But I wasn’t sated. Sated satisfies a hunger that always comes back. Content makes you feel like you don’t need anything more. Not ever.
And that’s fucked up.
Yet at the moment, I didn’t give a crap how screwed up it was that I felt this way. In fact, for the last half hour, I’d had to take a piss. But I didn’t, because I was afraid when my feet hit the floor, this feeling might be gone again.
Annalise’s head rested on my chest, as I stroked her hair. Her fingers traced a small circle around my abdomen.
“Can I ask you something?” Her voice was low.
“Yeah. I can go again. Just move your hand down a little farther south for a minute.”
She giggled and play-smacked my stomach. “That’s not what I was going to ask.” She paused, and her voice turned serious. “But could you really do it again? We did it twice already since I got here.”
I took her hand and pushed it down to my cock. I was still semi-erect after the last go-round.
“Ummm… I think you might have a problem. It’s supposed to deflate once in a while, you know.”
“Well, now that we’re talking about my dick, he knows it, and he’s even more awake, so if you had a real question, you better get to asking it pretty quick. Your mouth is gonna be too full to speak in a minute.”
Annalise propped her head up on her fist, which rested on my chest. “What do you think would happen if we didn’t have an expiration date?”
I froze. “What do you mean?”
“What if we just worked together and one of us wasn’t relocating soon? Do you think we’d be doing this a year from now?”
I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but I needed to be honest. Words normally came from my brain, but it felt like this one ripped and tore its way up from my heart.
“No.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “Okay.”
Fuck.
She turned her head and rested it back on my chest. A few minutes later, I felt wetness on my skin.
Fuck. Fuck.
She was crying. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. Then I rolled us until she was on her back and I could speak to her face to face. I wiped a tear with my thumb. She looked over my shoulder instead of at me.
“Hey. Look at me.”
I hated that her eyes were filled with pain when they met mine. Pain I’d caused.
“The answer has everything to do with me, and nothing to do with you. You’re…”
I was rarely at a loss for words. But I didn’t have any to accurately describe what I thought of her. Yet I knew it was important that my message get through. She’d just come out of a shitty, long-term relationship, and she needed to know what she was.
“You’re everything, Annalise. I’ve met two types of women in my life: every woman out there. And you.”
“Then I don’t understand…”
“You asked me if things were different, if we would be doing this a year from now. I’m being honest. We wouldn’t be. But I don’t want you to think it’s because I wouldn’t be the luckiest son of a bitch if I got to keep you in my bed for that long. Because I would. But some people just aren’t cut out for long term.”
“Why not?”
The truth was because they don’t deserve it. But I couldn’t tell Annalise that. She’d spend every last minute of the time we had left together trying to prove me wrong.