Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103719 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103719 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
“Kiss me,” she said. “We don’t need to go any further than that. But just… let me feel your mouth on mine. Please.”
As he hesitated, the barrier of her robust health seemed just as much of an obstacle as his illness, the distance between them nearly impossible to cross. Except just as he had left the examination room down in the lab and ended up here without conscious thought… he leaned in to her with no clue that that was what he was going to do.
Daniel was suddenly just… there. Tilting his head. Closing the final inch. Putting his mouth…
… on hers.
Lydia’s lips were so soft, softer than he remembered, and as the sensation registered, he realized it was the first comforting feeling he had experienced in—God, he had no idea how long it had been. And it was good. Caressing her mouth with his own, everything faded away, from the stiffness in his lower back, to the pain in his ribs and shoulder from the tumors, to the cold that he felt in his feet and hands. He stopped thinking about the blood tests. The results. The future.
The instant became all that he knew.
Oh, to put the burden down.
This was what he’d been searching for when he’d poured that Jack or tried to inhale that fucking smoke. This return to what he had once been—
All at once, he kissed her properly, licking his way into her mouth, spearing a hand through her hair, caressing her breast through her turtleneck and her bra.
And she moaned, as if she liked it as much as he did.
Moving his hands down to her waist, he wanted to pick her up and put her on his hips, but he didn’t have the strength. She knew what he was going for, however. With careful moves, she shifted herself into place as he inched farther back on the seat to give her some room. She had lost weight, too, her ribs more pronounced, the curves of her hips sharper—except he couldn’t think about the why of it all. Not right now. He wasn’t wasting this moment.
Continuing down her thighs, he remembered the feel of them naked around him and the images that flooded into his mind consumed him. He saw her arching back as she orgasmed, her breasts rising up, her nipples—
Brrrrrrrrrr. Pause. Brrrrrrrr. Pause. Brrrrrrrr.
They separated and he leaned to the side. His phone was going off in his pocket, and thanks to his loose pants, it was vibrating on the seat.
Meanwhile, Lydia’s breath was pumping in and out of her, and he made sure to catch a mental snapshot of her with her face flushed and her lips parted.
“You better answer it,” she said. “In case it’s Gus.”
Fucking hell. They couldn’t have ten minutes alone without cancer barging in?
“I’m not finished with you,” he vowed as he reached back and took the phone out.
“Who is it?”
Daniel frowned at the number. “It’s not Gus. I’ll tell you that much.”
FIFTEEN
AS DANIEL ANSWERED the call, he watched Lydia ease back onto the Harley’s gas tank and handlebars. He had to imagine that the contours were at odds with her spine, and it was clear the gauges prevented her from having a head rest, but she didn’t seem to care. Not with the way she was looking up at him from behind hooded lids—and man, that stare was the medicine he needed. In this moment, right here, right now, she didn’t appear to see the knit cap on his head, or his sunken eyes and cheeks, or his narrow shoulders—
“Hello?” came the female voice over the connection. “You there?”
“Yeah,” he murmured. “I’m here.”
Lydia reached up and ran a hand down the side of her throat… and over her breast. As his brain scrambled, he tried to concentrate on the voice in his ear, but it was hard as she toyed with her taut nipple.
“I’m sorry if I was a bitch earlier,” Alex Hess announced.
“You’re welcome—” He cursed. How the fuck did people talk to each other? “I mean, no problem.”
Lydia brought her free hand up to her mouth, and caressed her lower lip, as on her breast, she circled, circled… circled what he desperately needed to suck on.
“Listen… I’ll meet you tonight, if you still want,” the woman who called said.
Daniel swallowed. Licked his lips. Tried to remember how his woman tasted.
Decided to find out.
Except then the phone call sank in. “Yes, we’d like that.”
Lydia’s hand stilled and then dropped down to her waist. As she cocked an eyebrow, he held up a finger for her to hang on a sec.
“What changed your mind?” he asked.
Alex Hess? Lydia mouthed.
When he nodded, she sat up and shuffled back a little. Then she lifted her palms, as if to say, Now, what?
“Hello?” he repeated.
That deep, intense voice on the other side dropped even lower. “I’ll explain when I see you.”