Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
I screamed into the sheets, still clutching tightly to him with my other hand. The feel of his warm, jagged breath on my skin, of his sweat-damp chest hair against my back, and the heavy press of his hips against my ass joined the chaotic mess inside my head.
When Reagan pulled out, the empty, messy feeling left in his place echoed the chaos in my thoughts. Thinking about what awaited us in Honeybridge put a dark cloud over my plans to continue enjoying Reagan’s company.
“Turn over,” he said softly. “Let me clean you up.”
I managed to push myself onto my back with all the finesse of a turtle and blinked at him. He sat back on his heels, his sun-kissed hair sticking up at odd angles, forehead damp with sweat. Bright aquamarine eyes peered intensely at me, making me feel more exposed and defenseless than I had when he was fucking me.
Slowly, as though I might stop him, he climbed over me, hovering on his hands and knees. He bent to brush his lips to mine in a kiss that was achingly tender.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
“For what, bottoming?” I gave him a teasing grin, trying to lighten the mood. “If it wasn’t obvious, I enjoyed the hell out of it.”
But Reagan didn’t take the bait.
“For that,” he agreed. “For trusting me. For knowing what I need and giving it to me. For not immediately regretting this.” His soft smile was a little bit wry. “Unlike our first time.”
I lifted a hand to his messy, damp hair. “I didn’t regret that night,” I found myself saying. “I regretted the circumstances around it. I regretted that I’m your boss, that I’m friends with your parents. I regretted that it was so good I wanted more… even though I shouldn’t have. And I worried you’d have regrets, too.”
Reagan shook his head but gave me a small smile. “That night, my only regret was that I hadn’t jumped you last summer. I mean, think of all the days we wasted cruising around on my father’s sailboat when we could have been doing this.”
“And now?” I prompted, trying to pretend that I wasn’t holding my breath, waiting for his answer.
“And now…” His smile brightened, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I think I’m going to make sure I don’t have any more regrets by enjoying you as much as possible before you—I mean, we—get back to the city.” Reagan winked, then pushed himself off the bed.
I watched as he moved through the motions, retrieving a wet cloth from the tiny bathroom and returning to attend to my body. I hissed as he gently moved one of my legs out of the way, and he pressed a reassuring kiss to my knee.
My breath stuttered in my chest.
I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had taken care of me. Couldn’t remember the last time I’d let anyone. But like so many things, with Reagan, it simply felt… right. Necessary. Just as right and necessary as it felt for me to care for and protect him.
There was no logic to the feeling. It wasn’t anything I could explain or excuse to the rest of the world. And it didn’t suddenly eliminate all the multitude of ways that the two of us having anything more than a temporary arrangement would be wrong.
But as he finished his task and bent to kiss me again, his eyes met mine, and an emotion-drunk voice slithered silently through my mind.
This can’t be an ending.
I won’t let it be.
Chapter Thirteen
Reagan
I was in love with Thatcher Pennington.
That had become clear the moment he’d called me sweetheart instead of running in horrified disgust when I’d gotten emotional during sex—a thing I’d never done, ever, in my entire try-sexual history, with any partner or variety of partners, no matter how hot they were or how inebriated I was, no matter how wildly inappropriate the setting or the participants.
I had always said you could enjoy sex better when you kept the emotional significance out of it. It was easier to concentrate on getting off when you weren’t worried that whichever side of the bed you flopped on postorgasm was going to be your side, forever and ever amen.
And yes, okay, maybe after JT and Flynn found each other again, I’d started to think it might be nice to fall in love someday. To have someone look at me with the fiery devotion Flynn gave my brother in every passing glance. But I’d thought about summiting Mount Kilimanjaro, too, when I’d seen someone doing it on Instagram, and that didn’t mean I was going to throw on my flip-flops and start climbing willy-nilly.
It figured that with Thatcher, nothing about love had gone the way I’d expected, not from the moment I’d agreed to a proposition from a bossy mystery man and found myself kissing my actual boss. Thatcher was so much more than the hot, unattainable teenage fantasy I’d thought he was. He was dominant, yes, but also open-minded and fair, and my heart squeezed thinking of how very responsible he felt for the people in his life—his employees, his lover, the son who hadn’t bothered answering one of Thatcher’s dozens of check-in texts this week. When I was alone with Thatcher, even before we’d come together last night, his proximity had made my heart pound in a way that it simply hadn’t for anyone else, with a strong, fast rhythm that showed the stakes were higher.