Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
It felt so normal, so good, so right to be with him first thing in the morning. Doing things normal people did. They had always experienced each other only in stolen snatches, creating a mystique that compounded the intensity of their connection. Kerris had wondered how it would withstand the mundane. It was holding up rather nicely.
“This is nice, right?” Walsh asked, echoing her thoughts.
Kerris nodded and smiled around a mouthful of pancake.
“You look so happy. How can I arrange to spend every morning like this for the rest of my life?”
Kerris sobered, laying her fork down and moving to get up from his lap. His comment could lead them down a dangerous path. Walsh trapped her against him.
“Okay. I’m sorry. I’ll drop it. Just stay right here. I hate it when you run from me.”
“I’m not running.” The lie soured the sweetness of syrup in her mouth. There were many things she was still running from. “I’m right here.”
“I mean running in here.” Walsh laid his hand against her heart.
He must have felt that stupid, traitorous muscle pounding furiously through the thin silk of her gown and kimono. His hand brushed against the soft curve of her breast, and she pressed herself deeper into his roughened palm.
He pushed the kimono away from her shoulders, allowing the silken folds to gather and hang at her elbows. Slowly, looking into the storm of desire she knew was gathering force in her eyes, he pushed the straps down her arms and watched the gown puddle around her waist. He swallowed hard at the sight of her naked breasts, rounded and full. He dipped his finger into the syrup on his plate, hovering over one nipple. Her chest heaved with the wait, every cell in her body impatient for his touch. The wicked passion lighting his eyes only intensified the torturous seconds before he slowly massaged the sticky syrup onto one nipple.
His fingers rubbed the syrup into the sensitive flesh, making Kerris gasp. Her eyelids dropped, white flags signaling her complete surrender. And then he was at her breast, the hot, wet worship of his tongue suckling the syrup away, laving the puckered areola.
“Ah.”
That one syllable was all Kerris could spare. He had stolen her next breath, stolen her next thought. She pressed into the heat of his hungry mouth, clutching his head to her breast. Her head fell back, and the rhythmic suckling of his lips and tongue was so beautifully erotic she wanted to shove the dishes to the floor, drag Walsh up to the table, and slather syrup over every inch of his body. There were acres of hardened flesh to explore and worship in kind.
Kerris pulled him away from her breast and their lips collided, their tongues tangling, until she heard only one thing. The beating of her heart.
Chapter Eighteen
You ever heard you can’t make a pot of water boil faster by looking at it?” Meredith’s eyes never left the spreadsheet she was studying on her laptop. “Same thing applies to that phone. Checking it every two minutes won’t make it ring.”
Kerris slid the phone into the pocket of her cotton dress and rearranged a few pieces from her Riverstone Collection on a shelf against the wall.
“What time was he supposed to call?” Meredith closed her laptop and stretched the muscles Kerris knew must be fatigued. Her friend had been at it all day.
“Five o’clock.” Kerris ruined her pout with a smile. “But I’m sure there’s a good excuse. His dad’s a real slave driver. It’s been hard for him to come here every weekend this month.”
“But you’re glad he has.” Meredith slid her glasses up into her spiky, cotton candy–pink hair.
Kerris answered with only a smile, her hand straying toward the phone in her pocket again, but she caught herself in time. Walsh would call soon. He always called.
On the few occasions they had “gone public” since Walsh had returned from Saudi Arabia three weeks ago, he’d been approached by everyone from the mayor to the neighborhood busybodies, all of them shooting speculative glances between Cam Mitchell’s best friend and his soon-to-be-but-not-yet-ex-wife. And each time she cared a little less. Let them judge or condemn. She had fought what was between her and Walsh, literally for years. With her divorce just two months away from being final, soon nothing would stop them from being together openly and happily.
Kerris was hunting through a pile of scarves for one that would work with the dress a customer had found when the noise in the shop slowly petered out until the room was eerily quiet for six o’clock in the evening.
“Mrs. Peterson, what about this one?” Kerris’s voice rang out in the unnaturally quiet shop. “Think this one will work?”
She laid the floral scarf against the dress Mrs. Peterson was wearing, and looked up to gauge her reaction. But Mrs. Peterson wasn’t looking at Kerris. Her eyes clung to the shop entrance over Kerris’s shoulder. Matter of fact, that’s where everyone’s attention seemed focused.