Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
“Although we’ve worked it out, upon reflection, I’m wondering if perhaps we shouldn’t try to stop fighting,” I suggested. “Interesting things seem to happen when we realize we’re not at cross purposes.”
“In other words, you still feel me fucking you, and you like it.”
“In other words, yes.”
He started chuckling and pulled me closer, tucking my head under his chin.
And that was when he made it all worth it.
But he did this by shredding me.
“My dad hated that I worked at Camp Trail Blazer. He couldn’t believe he was who he was, he’d accomplished all he did, and he made a son who was what he called a camp counselor. We butted heads about it. The last time I talked to him before he killed himself, I told him, if he didn’t like the man I’d turned out to be, he was welcome to absent himself from my life. And then I walked out. Those words were the last he heard from me. And they were the last I’ll ever get to say to him. I have to live with that for the rest of my life, Elsa. And it guts me.”
Well…
Shit.
I pushed into him, holding on tightly, whispering, “Honey.”
Because, what else could I say?
“So I have to do what I have to do with his legacy, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed swiftly, even if I didn’t totally agree.
He needed to get beyond that, and he couldn’t forfeit his happiness to make up for a heated conversation with his father he couldn’t even begin to imagine would be his last.
But for now, I would leave it alone.
“Okay,” he murmured.
I held him in my arms and tried to put myself in his headspace. But for obvious reasons, my brain wouldn’t allow me to think of losing my dad at all, and definitely not that way.
So I just held him until I thought the time was ripe for us to move on from the intensity of the night into something else.
I signaled this by asking, “Did you happen to have time to make dessert?”
I felt his body shaking with humor when he answered, “No.”
“Well, obviously it was a good call to come home early and fit making that bread in between Zoom meetings, but can I suggest next time you do it even earlier and make, say, an apple pie?”
With that, he started laughing even as he rolled us so we were close to his nightstand.
He picked up the phone there and hit a button.
“Yes, Jim. Could you handle sending someone out to get a slice of apple pie, a walnut brownie and some vanilla ice cream from Bubby’s?” Pause then, “Thanks.”
He hung up the phone.
“Easy as that?” I asked.
“The concierge here is full service.”
“You’re hard work, Hale Wheeler, but from-scratch bread, spicy Bolognese, two orgasms and apple pie from Bubby’s, I’m thinking you might be worth it.”
His hands started moving on my skin. “Before our dessert gets here, we might have time for me to prove how worth it I’m gonna be.”
“You better hurry. We won’t want that ice cream to melt.”
He shot me a smile that made something else melt.
And he hurried.
CHAPTER 17
NEW YORK
Them
Her…
The next morning, the alarm on my phone sounded.
We were spooning, so first, I had to find the willpower to do it, and second, I had to push through Hale’s hold to reach out and stop it in order to leave the luxury of the curve of his long body and start the day.
It was asking a lot of a girl, but I managed it.
I was going to turn and give him a quick kiss before I left him in bed, but his arm suddenly tightened, I found myself tucked to his front again, and I stilled when his hand cupped my sex.
Oh yes.
“Panties off,” he said in a sleepy, gruff growl that made me shiver. “I want you on my face.”
And one could say I wanted to be on his face…badly.
Right then, I’d start the day a wee bit later.
Like the night before, I didn’t hesitate. My movements were clumsy because I was still sleepy too, also trembling at his command, but I did as told.
He’d positioned for me so when I swung a leg over his head, he was ready.
And he went at me. So rough and hungry, it was like the night before didn’t happen and he hadn’t tasted pussy in decades.
He ate me so thoroughly, I thought he’d make me come with his mouth, but he didn’t.
When I was this close, he slid me down him, pushed up to resting against his headboard, and ordered, “Get a condom.”
I reached for it, he took it from me, put it on, then grasped my hips, shifting them, until he impaled me.
Full of Hale, my eyes closed, and my head fell back.
“Look at me while you ride me,” he ordered.