Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
I cut him off with a knee to the gut, and he laughed, wrapping me up in a straitjacket of arms and legs again.
“Don’t even joke like that,” I warned, but it was through a smile, because I knew it was a joke. And that was the most beautiful relief, the most incredible feeling — to know he was mine and no one else was a threat.
“But I like to push your buttons.”
“Find more creative ways to push them.”
“Oh, I like the sound of that game,” he said, and then I was flipped onto my back, and he was pressing me into the sheets, opening my legs with his thighs.
He was still smiling against my lips as we kissed, as I sighed and opened for him. But that smile faded the more we tangled ourselves together, and he pressed his forehead against mine, shaking his head like he didn’t deserve to be there, with me, in my bed.
“I can’t believe what you’ve done to me.” His hands gripped me harder, and I gasped, writhing under his touch. “Everything before you was black and white, a monochromatic existence.”
“And now?”
“Now, it’s a kaleidoscope of color,” he said with a kiss. “Dizzying and maddening and beautiful.”
Words were gone after that, and once again, I found myself paying homage to his hands. His hands that undressed me, piece by piece, that splayed me out in the sheets beneath him as he rid himself of his own clothing next. His hands that pulled me into his lap, that palmed my ass and guided me until I was sinking down and he was filling me. His hands that fucked up my hair and my makeup and my very way of life.
Vince wrapped those hands around my shoulders and pulled me down onto him, flexing his hips like he couldn’t fill me enough. He rocked in and out, holding me to him, kissing and fucking me in an unrelenting rhythm of need. It was just like that night at the pottery wheel, but somehow even more.
He was claiming me, marking me, erasing any trace of anyone who came before him.
It was a sacred union of souls, a burning hot shotgun wedding.
“I love you,” I whispered against his lips.
Vince froze, his hands holding my hips and my weight suspended just above him. He locked his eyes on mine, searching, and then one hand snaked behind my neck to bring me into him.
“I love you,” he echoed.
His next kiss was bruising, and he pressed inside me deep and strong. He held me there, fucking me with small, precise little flexes of his hips as his lips took their time nipping and sucking and kissing mine.
I rocked against him, finding the friction I needed to release. My legs quaked, moans suffocated by his mouth as he devoured every single one.
As he devoured me.
The last of who I was before Vince Tanev vanished in a puff of smoke that night, and I emerged on the other side, a phoenix rising. The past couldn’t control me anymore, and the future couldn’t paralyze me with its claws.
I was free.
Free to choose, free to fall, free to love and to be loved.
My assignment was over. The job was done.
But I knew I’d make a career out of loving that man and his magic hands, and I’d only just begun.
We’ll See About That
Vince
May
I should have been used to the glare Maven’s father loved to pin me with, but it still shook me to my core.
Bernard King was a tall man, broad and stern with everyone except his baby girl. For her, he’d smile wide and bright, his blue eyes crinkling at the edges. But with me, they were always hidden beneath bent brows and a suspicious gaze.
I couldn’t blame him, not after how James had broken Maven. I knew I’d have to earn his trust just as much as I had to earn Maven’s, and I was fine with that. I was here to put in the time.
Where Bernie looked at me like a mangy dog he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep around, his wife, Leah, fawned over me like a brand-new puppy. She and my mom had become fast friends, and I was pretty sure they were planning a wedding regardless of the fact that I hadn’t given Maven a ring.
Yet.
Where Bernie was tall, Leah was a slight little thing, and I loved to sit back and watch the two of them when they were together — especially with their daughter and doing what they loved most. It was fascinating to me, how selfless they were, how they gave their time and energy and money without a second thought.
Leah had ink-black hair that she wore short and curly more times than not, her skin a rich brown. Bernie was pale white and had more gray than any other color on what was left of his hair. But what I loved most was that I could see a little of each of them in Maven — the shape of her father’s eyes, the color of her mother’s, a blend of both their smiles and noses and laughs.