Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 45063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Nerves dance all over my body.
“But I can’t say it for good,” he says, ending the kiss but staying close, his lips brushing against mine. “I want to take you on a proper date.”
“It’s too dangerous,” I murmur. “Look what happened tonight.”
“We’ll have to go outside the city, somewhere we don’t know anybody.”
“I hate all this sneaking around.”
“Would you rather tell Adam?” he asks.
What would we tell him? That every time we kiss, we want to do more, that our bodies are certain, even if our minds are hazy.
“Not yet,” I whisper.
Bryson kisses me again, his hand sliding farther up my leg.
I gasp, causing our teeth to click as my core pulses, my clit rubbing against my panties, telling me to give myself to the pleasure, to not think about anything else.
When I touch his wrist, he stops. His fingers sink into my thigh as though he wants to keep going, but he doesn’t.
“I’m taking you out,” he says firmly. “Soon. We’ll arrange it through your email.”
I nod. “If you say so, doctor.”
“It’s an order. Be a good patient and kiss me again.”
When he pushes his lips against mine, a daring note flares within me this time. I decide to slide my hand up his thigh toward his manhood. He snarls through the kiss, his body shaking.
I push down on the outside of his pants, remembering how huge he looked when it was freed, and feeling him tangled up in the shorts. I squeeze my grip around him and stroke, stroke…
He ends the kiss, shaking his head.
“I’ll have to take your sweet, soaked pussy if you keep going. Or free those big, beautiful tits and slip my dick between them…”
“Big and beautiful?” I murmur.
He smirks, countless memories flashing across my mind of all the times I’ve seen him smile like that. I never imagined it would be aimed at me or he’d notice me or care.
“Are you fishing for compliments?”
“No, I…”
“Well, you’ve caught some,” he says in a light tone, soothing some of the anxiety trying to writhe into the moment. “Yes, big and beautiful. Every part of you fits that description. Your hips and your breasts and your thighs and your ass and your smile and your eyes and everything. You’re big and beautiful the entire way through.”
“Some men don’t like that.”
I almost say Eva wasn’t curvy like me.
It’s so difficult to focus on the goodness of the moment and his words, with the constant negative past trying to break through.
“I don’t care what some men like,” Bryson snaps. “I wouldn’t change a single part of you. Who are these some men, anyway?”
“Huh?”
He sits back, his eyes flaring as though he’s going to erupt. His shorts are still pitched upward from his hard cock, and his muscles are taut, forearms flexing. In the semi-darkness of the car, he looks like a beast, like my beast.
“You said some men. Who are they?”
“It was an expression,” I say softly.
Oh my God, it’s like he’s getting jealous. Like he wants me all for himself.
“What?” I say after a pause when he stares at me. “You clearly want to say something.”
“I listened to your podcast on unrequited love.”
“Oh.”
It’s all I can say as my mind does frantic flips, trying to work out how to explain this without throwing myself at him, without charging upstairs, and getting the notebook with his name written hundreds of times.
“It makes me wonder who this man is,” Bryson goes on.
His intensity is similar to when he dragged me into his lap and carried me up the stairs like nothing could stop him. It’s like he’s reflecting all the obsessive feelings I’ve ever felt back at me, like he can’t control himself.
I shake my head.
“I don’t…”
Know how to explain this without scaring him. That’s what I want to say, but it will be too obvious.
“Want to talk about this?” I finish instead, reaching for the door.
“Harper,” he says, a note of regret in his voice, but it’s too late. I push the door open, exit the car, and stride across the street.
There’s no way I can tell him about my crush. If, in a different world, he’d want me and want the future I long for, I couldn’t explain it. It would freak him out to know the obsession I’ve harbored for so long, way before it was appropriate—a girlish crush turning into the flaring fires of womanhood.
I take the stairs quickly, then quietly open my apartment door and sneak into my bedroom. If Tiffany woke and saw the tears in my eyes, she’d want to know what was wrong. I’d have to explain about the not-a-date with Bryson, skulking from the pizza joint.
I’m not sure what takes me to the bedside drawer, to the notebook buried under a bunch of random stuff. I pull it out, open the first page, and read the words.