Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 67755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 339(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 339(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Her breath gets shaky until she’s basically gasping, her lungs making a strange wheezing sound that I’m worried about and don’t really understand. Her eyes darken, and then she heaves herself off the wall and tears her hands from my grip, which wasn’t really holding her tight at all because, as I said, I’m not a monster. It was just a measure of self, and by self, I mean saving my balls, self-defense. I instinctively take a step back, but she advances, places her palms on my face, and tugs me down hard to meet her as she rises up on her tip toes.
Our mouths meet, colliding without hesitation. Caught off guard, I wobble and fall back against the wall. She falls back with me. My arm snakes out to catch and right her, and then she’s doing what I only thought about a few seconds ago, pressing all her soft, womanly curves up against the hard planes of me. I’m worried she’s going to feel my happy stick pressing into her stomach, but if she does, she doesn’t say anything.
I’m well aware that this could be the kiss of death, but there isn’t any stopping it.
There isn’t any coming back from this. I can feel it already. This woman might have been promised to me at birth, and then we might have lost each other, but now she’s here in my arms, pressed tight against me, kissing me. Maybe our paths were always on a crash course with each other, or maybe I made it happen, or Scarlet, or both of us, but whatever and however it happened, it’s happening, and I can’t make it unhappen or wish it away. I don’t want it to unhappen. I can feel her warmth, her solid heat, and the realness of her sending shockwaves crashing through me. Straight down to the center of my being.
I’ve never opened myself up to anyone other than my brothers. Yes, I’ve kissed women. I’ve even had a few consensual one-night stands because that’s all I felt I could do, but this isn’t a one-night stand. This isn’t a one-night kiss. This kiss is going to lead to more if I don’t stop it. It could get out of hand. I don’t even know what’s happening here. This woman says she doesn’t even like me. She’s getting her hate and attraction wires crossed. Fate or accident, there is still too much at stake to mess this up any worse than I already have. This could all be a part of her plan to knee me in the nuts and burst out the front door. Even if it’s not, there’s still the very real possibility that I’d “cock everything up,” as Pink likes to say, and I’ve done enough of that already.
I go to pull away, but right when I do, Azalea’s fingertips flutter over my cheek. They rest there, then sweep over to my hair, where she buries them in the thick strands and uses my hair like a guide to angle me even closer to her. Her other hand leaves my face and slides along my waist, touching my abs in a caress that feels more intimate than it should. My breath punches out of my lungs, and when my mouth parts, her tongue licks sensually along my lower lip. My heart nearly punches through my ribs; it’s beating so hard.
Half of me feels intoxicated, while the other half feels like I’m suffocating. It always feels a little like this when someone touches me, which is another reason I’ve kept to myself over the years. I wait for the feeling to spread out like ivy, cutting off my air supply, but then Azalea’s tongue strokes my bottom lip again before she gently suckles it into her mouth, and the feeling is gone. Gone, just like that. Evaporated like dew in the hot morning sun. The anxious, crawl-out-of-my-skin feeling is gone.
Azalea pulls back an inch and looks at me with heavy-lidded eyes. “Are you okay?” she whispers. I realize that I’ve frozen. I’m standing against the wall, my arm around her lightly, the other pressed up behind me. Entirely frozen.
“I…think so. Are…are you?”
She snorts, clearly amused. “I think so too. We shouldn’t, but…do you…would you…want to do that again?”
“I thought I was the last person you’d kiss. Especially because I have pickle breath.”
She breaks into a grin that is as bright and beautiful as the sun itself. She’s exquisitely beautiful, especially when she reaches back and tosses the curtain of her hair over her shoulder. Her lips are stained from the wine, from the force of my lips. Yes, I kissed her last night. Yes, it’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to kiss anyone. I’ve lived like a monk for the past two years. That’s right. Two. Years.