Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157175 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157175 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
‘Do nothing. Say nothing,’ I tell her, pulling her closer. ‘When I met you, you pulled me out of the black hole I’d been trapped in for so long. You gave me new life and purpose. I felt good for the first time in years, and I wasn’t about to let you refuse me those feelings.’
‘So you got creative?’ Her eyebrow hitches a smidgen.
‘Yes. I swear, I’d never worked so hard to get laid.’
A small gasp followed by a playful slap of my upper arm prompts a little laugh from me, and as a result, Ava rolls her eyes, not being able to help smiling herself. I pull her onto my lap, and she doesn’t complain, coming with ease. ‘Was it good?’ she asks. ‘When you finally got me into bed.’ Her lips seal tightly, as if she’s bracing herself. She’s wondered this before. She’s looked at me and considered what it would be like to be intimate with me.
‘You mean against a wall.’
‘Huh?’
This is better. This is the important stuff. The feelings, the connection, the out-of-this-world sex. ‘At Lusso.’
Her frown is huge. ‘What’s Lusso?’
‘A complex on St Katharine Docks. You were the designer. I bought the penthouse. That’s how I heard your name and why I got you to The Manor. I liked what you did with it. Italian shit everywhere.’
‘Oh. So you did get me back to your apartment, then?’
‘Not quite. I got you in the bathroom on launch night.’
‘I screwed you in the bathroom of a show home? Oh God!’ Her forehead falls onto my chest and rolls from side to side in despair. ‘That’s not like me. I don’t do things like that.’
I smile and wrap her in my arms, savouring the moment of her being so close. She wasn’t like that. I know. That was one of the things I loved about her. Problem is, she’s still that young woman in her mind. ‘It was incredible. The want thrumming from your body, mirroring mine. We were inevitable, baby. A spark just waiting to explode. And, trust me, we exploded.’
I swallow, my face in her hair, my body coming to life just talking about that moment in our history. The moment she gave in. The moment the explosion happened.
As a result of my thoughts, my cock starts to stiffen, and it can’t have escaped Ava’s notice, since she’s sitting on the damn thing. She better not move; I can’t promise I’ll be able to hold ba—
She shifts, and I suppress a growl, not very successfully. I’m iron behind my jeans. My veins are hot. My heart jumping. It’s not a good place to be when any kind of Jesse-style fuck is off the table. Lips straight, she finds my eyes, and I see that dormant lust lingering in their depths. She swallows and drops her gaze to my lips. Fucking hell, I’ve never been so starving for her. Never been so desperate to take her. Never felt so paralysed by desire. She’s just staring at my mouth, her body now unmoving on my lap, her mind clearly racing. She wants to kiss me. Wants to taste me.
‘Are you ready to stop fighting it now?’ I ask, being catapulted back to Lusso when I finally got to take what I so badly wanted.
‘I need all of you. Say I can have all of you.’ She immediately looks confused by her words, but I’m fucking elated, because even though she doesn’t know where these words are coming from, they’re coming, and that’s really all the hope I can count on right now.
‘You can have all of me,’ I tell her quietly, even though she already owns every fibre of my being.
She slowly drops forward until her lips gently meet mine. It’s a beautiful moment, one, along with many others, that I will cherish for as long as I live. I don’t take the lead, deciding that I should let her take it at her own pace, and I’m more than happy with her pace. It’s slow. It’s soft. It’s gentle and loving and everything that it should be. It’s everything that I feel.
The sofa melds around my back, and Ava melds into my front, my head resting back, my mouth and my tongue lax to easily follow her movements. My hands keep a firm hold of her hips, just enough to tell her that I’m here and I so desperately want to be. I haven’t tasted her in over a week. It’s the longest stretch I’ve ever gone without kissing her, feeling her, and maybe that is why every sense feels heightened. She tastes more potent; my skin feels hypersensitive to her touch. It’s perfect. So perfect, I never want it to end.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask against her lips when she pauses a beat before resuming her exploration of my mouth, her palms holding my cheeks as if she’s scared I’ll move and break her flow.