Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76172 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76172 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
He clings to my hands, preventing me from walking away.
“I know you’re it for me, Devyn. I know it because I have experienced life. My choice comes because of the things I’ve experienced.”
“Not everyone has to make a hundred mistakes before getting it right,” I challenge with a smirk.
“There has not been a hundred… mistakes,” he says.
“Does this conversation change your mind about us?”
He shakes his head. “Not a chance, but I’m willing to—”
“Let me make my own choice then. I know what I want.”
“You’ll tell me if you change your mind?”
“I won’t change my mind, but yes. If you need to hear that I’ll tell you if I decide I’m no longer interested in you, will keep you from stopping my hand in your pants, then yes. I will tell if something changes.”
“Promise?”
“I swear to you. Now will you teach me how to suck your cock? I’ve never done it before.”
His eyes light on fire, his hand not wasting a second before tangling in my hair as I lower to my knees, taking his jeans down his thighs with me.
Chapter 30
Legacy
“You don’t find that gross?” she asks, her cheeks flushed with my new favorite shade of pink.
I lick into her mouth, my cum coating her tongue making me groan with renewed arousal.
“Did you find it gross when I kissed you after eating your pussy?”
She shakes her head. “It was hot.”
“Same goes for me.”
The girl just sucked my soul from my cock, her eagerness to learn more of a turn-on than anything else.
“We’re going to run out of hot water,” she says, taking a step back.
She’s naked, having no argument on her lips when I stripped her bare.
The water of the shower cascades over her, dampening her hair. She’s a fucking goddess, everything in life I didn’t know I had a right to ask for.
I think she’s way off the mark about Vaughn. I don’t think asking him to date her would get me anywhere other than a bloody nose. I think the same would go for her parents, although the age gap wouldn’t be so much an issue as them swearing I’m the reason they lost their son.
I should probably pause, take a beat to consider everyone else involved, but what she said before hitting her knees resonates with me.
What if they were soulmates?
I feel that as far down into my chest as humanly possible. I know it’s too soon to even think these things, but I don’t feel as if I’m in control any longer. There’s another force at work, something guiding me to her, something making me rethink the words I said earlier about Vaughn not approving.
I feel like I’m losing my mind a little. I’m not one to believe in fate or the afterlife, or ghosts on any level. I’m as far from a religious man as one could probably get, but arguing about a vengeful God that lets horrific things happen to innocent people has no place in this shower with us right now. Needless to say, my beliefs in such things are non-existent.
It still doesn’t stop that urgency deep inside of me to wrap my arms around her and never let go. Claiming her, declaring her mine has less to do with sexual reference and everything to do with stepping up and being the man who will protect her for the rest of my life.
I stare down at her, sacred words a breath away from escaping my lips.
I choke them down, her own declarations not enough for me to trust that she wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by them.
I cup my hand to her cheek, her eyes blinking up at me, so bright and full of the millions of things she hasn’t encountered yet. I want to be there by her side when she learns new things, when she sees new places, when she discovers the things in life she loves and hates. I want to hold her hand through the things that scare her and stand by her side when she discovers her own strengths. I want to be the man she leans on when she can’t muster the courage to face something alone.
“I—” I begin, but the words clog my throat, the warning that it’s much too soon, that saying them opens me up for pain.
Losing her brother was the hardest thing I’ve faced in life. It gutted me. It changed me. It made me cautious of ever putting myself in a situation where I’d risk it happening again, but denying my feelings for her doesn’t diminish them. Avoiding any pain that may come is already too late.
“Emmett,” she says, taking a step closer to me. “What’s wrong?”
There’s still a part inside of me that remembers the shattered dreams, how much Vaughn’s death altered my path in life. I also know it has nothing on what losing her would do to me, and there’s a level of guilt that comes with that. Vaughn and I were inseparable. We spent every day together for years, and somehow this woman has managed to surpass that connection in a matter of weeks. It should feel like a betrayal, and I can’t decide if that pressure at my back pushing me toward her is something ethereal or my own creation in trying to convince myself that loving her is okay.