Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96129 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96129 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
I felt full of him even moments later, as he pulled out and lay me on the bed before going to the bathroom. I was still catching my breath, reeling from what happened, when he walked back and cleaned me thoroughly, gently, before disappearing again. As I closed my eyes, I heard the sound of water, but could barely keep my eyes open. When I felt him again, he was covering me with the comforter as he nestled into his side of the bed and turned my body toward him.
“Hey.” He touched the side of my face with the back of his hand. I opened my eyes and did the same to his before dragging my fingers down, feeling each wave of muscle in his arm and each indent on his chest. He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think you’re ready for round two yet.”
I smiled. “And you are?”
“With you?” He let out a laugh. “I’ve been waiting ten fucking years, so I’m ready whenever you want me to be ready.”
I felt myself frown. He’d said something like that before and I’d ignored him, but now it felt important, and I was too curious not to ask. “What do you mean ten years?”
“It doesn’t matter. I have you now.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my forehead. I decided to drop the topic for now. “Have you had a lot of boyfriends since?”
“Not a lot.” I smiled against his chest. “What about you?”
“Not really. No one I saw myself settling down with anyway.”
“Hm.” I didn’t like the idea of him being like this with anyone else, but it would be hypocritical of me to say that, so I didn’t. “I haven’t been with anyone in a couple of years. Hadn’t. Until this year,” I whispered. I hated that the person had been Anthony and hated it even more that I was bringing him up now, but I wanted to be honest. “He always used a condom. We never kissed. It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t . . .”
I was going to say consensual, but I couldn’t bring myself to. I’d never said the word “no” to Anthony. He hadn’t really given me a choice, though, with his threats. Every time he touched me, he’d started with “your father” or “you wouldn’t want your little brother to—" I didn’t want to say that to Dom, though, not here. I didn’t want to discuss Anthony at all.
“Like this,” he said, leaning back to cup my face and tilt it up to look at me. “It wasn’t like this.”
I shook my head. Definitely not like this.
“Nothing has ever been like this for me.” He kissed me again and I felt butterflies explode inside me. When he pulled back, he searched my eyes. “Before tonight, I hadn’t been with anyone in nine months.”
“That seems impossible.”
“Trust me, I’ve been counting.” He chuckled with a sigh as he pulled me into his chest. “I got tired of feeling empty after sex.”
I thought about the gravity of those statements, what they meant individually and how they came off when said back-to-back. Even as a kid, Dominic had never been one of those people who wasted words or lied about things. He’d been sneaky, sure, but never a liar. Having him say those things to me made my chest inflate in a way it never had before. I’d had one serious boyfriend, the only one who’d come over for dinner at my dad’s and took Santi to baseball games, but even he didn’t make me feel these things. I’d always thought what happened to my mother broke me in that way. That maybe my ability to get attached had been stripped from me that night, but it was clear I’d been wrong. I’d pushed that away, tried to bury it underneath the rubble of my broken emotions. I closed my eyes, inhaling him. I loved the way he smelled, loved the way I felt in his arms.
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” he asked after a moment.
“Nothing.” I yawned, not opening my eyes. “I have to work that weekend.”
“You don’t have dinner plans?” he asked. “What do you normally do? What’d you do last year?”
“I took Santi to Niagara Falls.” I smiled at the memory.
“You went to Canada to celebrate an American holiday?”
“Yeah.” I opened my eyes and laughed at the bemused expression on his face. “It’s just another Thursday, right? I don’t really care for holidays anyway.”
“It’s not about the holiday.” His brows furrowed. “It’s supposed to be a day spent with people you love.”
“Santi’s in Cabo with his girlfriend. Dad’s in jail.” I let out a laugh as I continued. “My family in Union City is going to DR. Yari’s the only other person I’d hang out with, but she’s also going to DR.” I shrugged. “Like I said, it’s just another Thursday.”