Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Destiny gasped and for a moment, her legs stiffened, like they wanted to close. Then I lowered my lips to her clit, and she gasped again, but this time, her legs fell open wider. Her hands fisted in the coverlet of the bed as I went to work, the most selfless I’d ever been with a woman.
But somehow, it wasn’t a hardship. I wanted to fuck her, but not as much as I wanted to please her. It was a complete reversal for me, but I didn’t question it. I couldn’t have. All I could think about was Destiny. Destiny giving herself to me. Destiny’s fingers curling in my hair. Destiny’s breathy moans as I licked her, my five-o-clock shadow scraping against the sensitive skin of her inner thighs.
When she finally threw her head back and came, I waited for the familiar selfishness to return. The feeling of you got yours, now I want mine. But it never did.
Instead, when I joined her in that bed, I held her.
All night.
22
DESTINY
I slept deeper that night than I ever had in my life. I fell asleep curled up against Garrett, my head on his shoulder, and when I woke up, we were both in the center of the bed. I was curled back against him now, his body strong, solid, and warm like a protective shell at my back. I opened my eyes, but otherwise, I stayed perfectly still.
I felt perfect contentment right then. The light of the sun at the edges of the drapes didn’t feel as insistent as it usually did. The distant sound of waves sounded like music instead of an invitation to get up, get going, do something! There was a loose knot of hunger in my belly, but not even the sumptuous feast waiting for us could have induced me to get out of bed right then.
I felt more than heard Garrett wake up. The quality of his breathing changed, the tension in his body shifted. Some of my contentment transfigured into anxious curiosity. We’d been so close last night. Closer than I’d ever been with anyone, even if we hadn’t actually had sex. I rolled over in his arms to face him, preparing to see that he’d woken up different. That he was back to being the man who thought he needed to send me away for my own good.
When I met his amber whiskey eyes, though, I knew he hadn’t. There was nothing closed off about his gaze when it met mine. Instead, it was like a floodgate had been opened. The flashes of protectiveness and heat I’d caught in his eyes over the last two months were undiluted by restraint now. He wrapped his hand around the back of my head and gave me a long, hard kiss, pressing me down to the mattress and shifting me beneath him.
“Good morning,” I said breathlessly when we finally broke apart. Heat was pooling between my legs. I’d felt him hard as a rock against me.
“Good morning,” he said, bracing his weight on his forearm. He studied my face, my hair, my breasts. I suddenly felt exposed, but it was nothing that pulling a blanket up over myself could fix. I felt exposed because in the last decade, I could count on one hand how many people had seen me undone. Makeup not perfectly applied. Hair not blown out. I didn’t even look at myself without the glam that often.
“What?” I asked self-consciously as Garrett continued to stare. Rita Hayworth’s line about men going to bed with her character, Gilda, and waking up with only her ran through my mind.
“I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful,” he said roughly, dispelling my fears before they could spool up and take on a life of their own.
I laughed, relief flooding through me. I hadn’t misread him. “Why do you sound so mad about it?”
He shook his head silently, his mouth tightening.
I reached up and brushed my hand over his jawline, waiting for him to explain.
“I’m jealous of the man who gets to have you,” Garrett said in a detached, clinical way, like he was diagnosing a patient rather than admitting his feelings.
I laughed again, this time in surprise. “You mean you’re jealous of yourself?”
“I don’t get to have you, Destiny.” He skimmed his knuckles down my cheek, turned his palm in and followed the curve of my neck to my shoulders and all the way down my arm, leaving a trail of goosebumps. “Not really.”
“You can, though.” I reached up and pulled him down to me. “You could have me right now.”
His mouth was hard on mine, but he didn’t take it any further, even as I tried to press myself against him. “Later,” he said, his voice half warning and half promise. “Right now, we have that damn breakfast.”
A few minutes later, I slipped out of Garrett’s room and hurried to mine, letting myself in and shutting the door behind me before anyone could see I was still wearing last night’s outfit. I got in the shower, hoping the rush of water would clear the confusion somehow. But even after my hair was clean and wrapped up in a towel, I still didn’t understand Garrett.