Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 138128 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138128 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Not that I minded the way she grips my shoulders, urging me for more. We’ve done practically everything we can with clothes, even when minimally dressed, to this point. Seeing her shoulders exposed, though, reminds me that we won’t be making out. We’ll be making love. I kiss her neck, a battle raging between instinct to rush forward and taking it slow and romantic.
I pull back to stare into her eyes. “Is this what you want?” I need that yes, that she’s where I am with us—ready to not only share our bodies, but a bed that I can go to sleep and wake up with her next to me. I probably shouldn’t want that as much as I do, but I want it with her.
“We are. I want you.”
“Everything that comes with dating you, I want that. I want you, Chloe.” I kiss her deeper than we did at the door before we move down the mattress together, only a blanket and underwear between us.
The delicate pulse in her neck has me pressing my lips to it, wanting to feel every part of her. Her fingers slide through my hair, and she whispers, “You’re going to be so bad for my plans.” Caressing my cheek, she gets my attention. She kisses me, letting her lips linger against mine. “But so good for me.”
Slipping my fingers into her silky locks, I kiss her, and roll her to the mattress beneath me. “I’ll make sure I’m good for both.”
“Don’t stop kissing me.”
I don’t.
I couldn’t.
Until she asks, “Joshua?”
I move to the side of her and turn my head. With the moonlight streaming in, I see the sweetest little freckles sprinkled across the apples of her cheeks. My gaze dips to the bow at the tip of her lips and how they’re parted just slightly. Caressing her face, I rub my thumb lightly over her skin. She’s stunning in every light, but the need to have her in my arms takes hold.
Her long hair, darker in the soft light, fans across the pillow. She rests her melodic sighs, and soft smile, the weight of her trust bearing down on me.
“Yeah?”
She rests her hand on my chest, and whispers, “What are we doing?”
“Falling for each other.” Maybe I should have hesitated, but it wouldn’t feel right to deny my own feelings.
“This is what it feels like?”
“Yes,” I confess, kissing her until a spark reignites the heat between us. But it’s not my mouth I’m worried about. It’s the fire she lit in the belly of my soul.
13
Chloe
The weight of his body, the flexing of his muscles when I run my fingers over them, his lips on mine like they’ve become one—Heaven is found in Joshua Evans’s kiss.
Despite the alcohol trying to dull the edges, there’s no way I couldn’t feel alive in his arms as every nerve in my body sparked to life. This is the magic I’ve heard about—this sense of abandoning my life for something that feels so right.
He feels so right.
I sigh, releasing my mind from overthinking and instead focus on feeling.
Freedom is found in the falling.
Wild abandon for this man courses through me.
As if a checkered flag was waved, he moves in to kiss me with an unquenched passion. Our tongues mingle as we explore new territory—our hearts bonding together with each sweet embrace of our tongues.
New territory, new world . . . ours. The one we created together when we thought it was just fun.
Together.
It was always such a foreign concept, lost in days and years. Joshua inspires me to feel every second, to languish his arms and in his touch. I want to talk in bed all night and sleep in with him. I never saw love coming, but I feel it sweeping in like a summer thunderstorm—the dewy scent, the change in air. I want to dance in his rain, to become one with this man. Laugh. Love.
Everything. Everything. I want everything with him, even the one thing that’s felt forbidden. I don’t want to hold back.
I don’t want to hold onto something that feels like it was meant for him all along. This is the man I want to remember for my first time. “You feel so good.”
With a knee, he spreads my legs apart and kisses me as he settles between them. His breath hits the wet trail that he left from my mouth to my ear, sending shivers through my chest and down my arms. I buck against him, wanting the friction. Needing so much more of him.
“It hurts,” is whispered in my ear.
“Real pain?” I ask, my eyes opening.
He chuckles. “No. I was going to say I want you so much. So, no need to call 911, Doctor. There are natural methods to cure me.” My cheeks flame from embarrassment. He doesn’t miss a beat, and adds, “You’re the cure for my ailments.” A wry grin situates itself on his handsome face.