Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 134746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Stop, I think desperately. Stop it, Jet Daddy, or I’ll start to want you for real.
But his hand against my back urges me forward.
The silence feels like another presence with us, hovering and oppressive, as he guides me across the plaza. I feel the shift in the light against my eyelids as we fall under the shade of the trees lining the property.
We’re right at the gate now. Just the sidewalk, and I spot Rick waiting in the car on the curb and rejoice at the thought of lying down.
But August stops us just past the gate. I lift my head as much as I can.
He looks down at me with a strange expression before his jaw sets. I think there’s something like determination in the knit of his brows and the firmness of his mouth.
What? I try to say, but all my wires are still scrambled.
Then his fingers graze my chin, gripping lightly yet with that sense of the thinnest leash holding back the strength of his touch.
All my wires burn out in a single explosive instant.
Ferocious blue eyes search mine.
“I’m sorry as hell,” August whispers; only now the purr of it is deeper, this intimate, rough thing. “I do this for appearances. Don’t have a choice, but fuck, I don’t know how to stage a kiss. So this will have to suffice.”
Stage a what?
My mind wobbles.
Then the full meaning catches up to me.
Not fast enough, as August bows over me and slams his lips into mine.
My mind screams for one last second of common sense.
Not real. Not real. Not real.
This man doesn’t feel anything but irritation. It’s not effing real!
My lips tingle with the soft graze of his mouth, the lush tease of his beard. Like every bristling touch peels away layers of armor until each time his mouth strokes mine, I just feel more.
More heat.
More texture, more touch.
Everything from the faint crease in his lips to their firmness, the way they feel just like the silk and velvet and dark chocolate of his voice, the tiny hint of dampness making our mouths cling to each other until we’re like sweet sticky candy.
More, every time he draws back before another slow, tender collision of our lips connects us for just a moment longer before breaking apart with a soft slick sound.
More everything.
He kisses me like I mean the entire universe to him.
Like he’s caught so deep in his need to protect me, to shield me, to love me, that he has to kiss me like I’m fragile and precious.
I can’t even feel my headache anymore.
The reporters? Completely forgotten.
There’s just me, just August, just this moment.
The breathless magic minute when his tongue parts my lips, hungry and claiming and teasing.
His kiss captures me so intensely I rise up on my toes with a sharp shock that starts at my lips and plunges down through my heart, through my stomach, to right between my legs, where it curls up there in a little pool of sharp heat.
Holy hell.
I’ve had boyfriends tease me with lips and tongue to take me to the brink, but it always fell just a little flat. It felt too contrived, too awkward.
But August takes me there with one kiss.
He tastes like clove smoke, though I’ve never seen him with a cigarette.
I can’t feel anything but the space between us, the charged air between our bodies compressed and superheated until it slips under my dress and touches me like his tongue flowing over my naked skin, peaking my nipples, sliding between my legs to lick and tease and own.
I’ve never done drugs, but kissing August feels like a hit.
Everything bursts into vivid Technicolor sensation.
I can’t help myself.
I part my lips and clutch at him, lean into him, begging him for more.
No matter how gently he kisses me, there’s nothing soft about this.
There’s a secret sensuality lingering, something that makes it dirty and needy and perfectly hot.
God help me, I want more.
I don’t want to stop.
If we do, I’ll go crashing back to reality, where I’m dizzy and sick while dozens of bystanders stare at us like we’re zoo animals. Living reminders that I’m only doing this for his image.
Not because he wants me.
That thought isn’t enough to smother this feeling, though.
It’s like August could crawl inside me, deep in the darkest part of me, and ignite me from within so I burn in waves that pulse out through my whole body.
There’s so much promise in such a barely there kiss that I can hardly hold back a moan, a sigh, a wanting whisper of his name.
But I can’t.
Not with everyone watching.
Not when, to them, he’s just comforting his distraught fiancée. Not when—
“Eleanor! Hey, Elle!”
I snap back from August, shock ripping through me. It’s only been seconds, but I feel like we were locked together for hours, until someone called out my name. Our eyes lock in a hard, intense look before I turn toward the sound of my name without thinking.