Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
At no point did I stop and consider who he was, who I was, or where we were standing. All I knew was that I couldn’t stand there and not taste the happiness bubbling out of him in that moment.
He let out a muffled squeak that quickly turned into a groan. His hands clutched my sides, fingertips digging into my flesh, which only made my dick harder than it already was. We were chest to chest within seconds. The rough hair on his begged for my fingers, but I wasn’t willing to pull far enough apart from him to make it happen.
He tasted like sleep and toothpaste. I could smell the familiar hotel shampoo on his hair, and it reminded me I’d wanted to run my fingers through the thick locks to see if his hair felt as good as it looked.
It did.
I clutched a handful of it to hold him close so I could continue to own his mouth with mine. Last night hadn’t been enough. I’d wanted more; I’d wanted all of him. In my hands, in my mouth, in my bed.
In that moment, he could have been the king of England for all I cared. I wanted him naked beneath me, crying out my name as he came undone by my hand.
I hadn’t felt this possessive before with anyone, and it made me nervous.
As much as I tried to keep reasoned thoughts at bay, they forced their way into my brain. Why him? Why now? And why wasn’t Mr. Plays By The Rules pushing me away and claiming some kind of conflict of interest?
Unless this had all been part of his plan in the first place.
I yanked my mouth from his and pushed him a few inches away from me so I could breathe. I pressed a hand against his chest, stopping him from reaching for me. “Wait,” I gasped, struggling to catch my breath. “Wait.”
His eyes were glassy, and he swayed a little on his feet. His nose was red, and there was another red patch of beard burn on his chin. In that moment he looked both vulnerable and captivating. I caught myself staring.
“Why’d you stop?” It was like a slur, spoken in a drunken haze. There was no way James was faking any of this.
I smoothed my hand up his chest to run a thumb across his lower lip. “What are we doing?” I spoke softly as if worried about breaking whatever spell had allowed us to skip past the bullshit small talk.
His eyes moved from my eyes to my mouth and back again. I could feel him swaying toward me, the heat from his skin enveloping me. “Dunno. But I want to do more. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.”
We stared at each other, the air between us thick with anticipation.
I was hard and leaking for him. Right now it wasn’t the corporate attorney from New York standing right at the edge of my fingertips. It was the sweet, vulnerable man who’d poked a single toe in the ocean to judge the temperature and then shuddered and hopped back onto the warm sand. I held the gamer-geek, who’d started babbling adorably once he’d broken the seal of this hidden part of himself.
And I wanted him desperately.
I closed my eyes. I knew what the right answer was. What the safe answer was. To walk away. Tell him good night, push him from the room, and slam the door. There was no way that mixing business and pleasure would lead to anything but trouble.
And James Allen was the worst kind of trouble. The kind that upended life plans. That had already exploded my life once and promised to do so again before all was said and done.
But that didn’t stop me from wanting him. From convincing myself that sleeping with him wouldn’t complicate things more than they already were. We were both adults. We knew what was at stake. We both knew that a night fucking wouldn’t change anything—wouldn’t redraw the battle lines between us.
My voice was rougher than I’d expected. “I forgot to check something in your room earlier. I think I should do that now.”
His breathing hitched. He knew what I was asking. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” He looked at me for another moment, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure of much these days, but I was sure of this, of him. Regardless of what happened between Dunning’s attorney and the Gilley family, I was sure I wanted James Allen in my bed and against my body as soon as I could get him there.
It didn’t need to be anything more than this one night. But I craved release, and I didn’t have the willpower to avoid the temptation of the body in my arms.
“Let’s go.”