Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
I can’t move to Philly. He can’t move here. We’re stuck, torn between worlds.
“There’s got to be a way.” He pulls me onto his lap. I shimmy my hips down against him and enjoy the feeling of him already starting to stiffen as he kisses my lower lip. His hands move up my body and palm my breasts, his thumbs rolling over my nipples. “How about we buy a place halfway and stay there two weeks out of the month?”
“That seems impractical.” I release a little whimper as he bites and kisses me. “Also, you’re distracting me.”
“Yes, well, it’s hard to keep my hands to myself.”
“Seriously, Angelo. How did we think this would work? I’ve been so busy running for my life and now that we’re finally slowing down, it’s like—we should’ve thought of this already.”
“Here’s the thing.” He kisses me again and his lips move to my neck as he pulls off my top. I let out a little groan as his mouth finds my breasts, sucking my nipples, teasing me. “It’s hard to think with you around. All I want to do is kiss you and make you melt, my little frigid princess. My ice queen.”
“How nice for both of us.”
He laughs and teases me with his teeth. “But I’m not going to just give up. Just because I live in one place and you live in another. We can figure out a way to make it work.”
“I want to,” I whisper.
“I do too.” He pulls back and stares into my eyes. “I love you, Sara. I fell in love with you a while ago, and I don’t plan on losing you, not over something as simple as… moving.”
“I love you too,” I say, and tears spring into my eyes. God, when did I become a girl that cries all the time? I wipe them away, shaking my head, and he kisses me, holding me against him in his lap. I feel his warmth, bask in his taste, and I wonder how I ever got to a place where I felt like I deserved this, and yet right now I couldn’t peel myself away from this man even if someone tried to force me.
Because it’s my decision. He’s my choice. Like friendship, like family. He’s what I want, and he’s how I want it, and I can walk around through my life and drift from moment to moment but it will never be as sweet and as good as when I’m doing it all with Angelo. He makes me better, stronger. He makes me want to take good risks, live a little bit, open up. And yes, I’m still me, I still have my walls, my frozen palace, but he melted it a little bit. He cracked those walls, scaled the parapets, climbed into my heart.
And I can’t let him go.
“I love you,” he says as he slips a hand between my legs and feels my wetness. “I love you, Sara, I love you and everything you are.” He teases me, slides his fingers inside, rolls them around my clit until I’m holding on tight to him and moving my hips and moaning, over and over, I love you too, I love you too, my mind a blurry blank, and I keep going, going, until I come like that in his lap, my mouth open and gasping.
I collapse in a puddle in his lap. He holds me tight, arms wrapped around my body. I love him—he loves me—and we haven’t fixed a damn thing. Nothing is resolved, and I don’t know how it ever will be.
Until my phone starts to ring.
“Go away,” I grumble, still buzzing on my orgasm. “Angelo, go turn it off. Throw it out the window, I don’t care.”
He laughs and puts me down on the couch as he walks over to where the phone’s buzzing on a table. But instead of turning it off, he holds it up, eyes hard. “Carmine.”
I manage to drag myself up from the couch. “Carmine?”
“Answer.” He tosses the phone over, and I snatch it from the air.
“Hello?”
Carmine’s voice on the other end. “Sara. They let him go.”
I blink a few times, trying to process. I look at the clock—it’s ten at night. “Seriously? Just now?”
“Just now. I thought it would be tomorrow, but—he’s out.”
“He’s out.” I stare at Angelo, and Angelo’s blinking rapidly in surprise. “Okay, we’ll go get him right now.”
“Thank you, Sara. For everything. Seriously.”
“Yeah, sure, Carmine, sure. You’re welcome.”
I hang up.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Angelo says, sweeping into the bedroom. He starts getting changed as fast as he can and I hurry after him. I grab pants, new underwear, basically all new clothes that don’t smell like sex. “They let him out now? Right now?”
“One last spiteful fuck you, I guess,” I say and grab his arm. “But who cares? He’s out, Angelo. We’re going to go pick up your guy.”