Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
I turned my back to her.
This is the right thing to do.
I walked to the door.
It’s the right thing.
I put my hand on the knob…
And then I cursed, marched back to the bed, and kissed her as hard as I could.
19
OLIVIA
I’d been sitting on the bed, crushed and gray. Then his footsteps changed direction and there was just time for my heart to lift and my chest to fill in hope before—
The kiss came suddenly, and in the pitch blackness, my whole world narrowed down to that one sensation. As his lips pressed mine, I could feel every tiny nerve ending coming alive, each one sending a golden spark arcing down through my body. The sparks twisted together, becoming a scorching rush of heat that rocketed down my body and detonated in my groin. I grabbed for him in the dark. Found his shoulders and clung on tight, the fabric of his camo top rough under my fingers.
His lips broke contact and then came back, tasting me, and the second kiss was even better than the first. I gave a soft little moan and my lips flowered open under him. That made him growl low in his throat and pull me tighter against him, every muscle in his body suddenly hard. That’s me?! I thought, in excitement and shock, that’s me, doing that to him?!
He cupped my cheeks with both hands, thumbs stroking my cheekbones and fingertips sliding into my hair. He leaned me back, kissing down into me, every press of his lips taking me another inch towards the bed. I was breathless, panting against his mouth, and every time I inhaled, I seemed to go a little more heady: I was getting drunk on him.
This was exactly what I’d been fantasizing about since the first time I met him: I was the lady being seduced by the highwayman, the maiden being corrupted by the rogue. And I wanted it. I’d never wanted anything more.
I felt my head touch down on the bed and then we were lying, him hulking over me with a leg between my thighs. A hot ripple went down my body. God, this is really happening.
His tongue brushed my lips, expert and teasing, and I writhed, my ass grinding against the bed. Then his lips spread me wide and his tongue full-on plundered me, leaving me quaking.
He laid a trail of kisses down my jaw and down my neck. I’d closed my eyes at some point. Now I opened them again, desperate to see him. He’d dropped the glow stick on the bed, and as my eyes adjusted, its dim light let me watch as he stripped his camo top off over his head. His midsection appeared first, rock-hard and tight with power. Then his pecs, so wide and full they made me feel small. And finally, those big, caramel shoulders and the biceps like melons. I couldn’t help myself: as he hunkered down over me, I reached up and stroked my fingers over the warm muscle, going weak inside at the feel of him. I followed the tattoo of thorned vines down to where it encircled his Marine Corps tattoo: the good, surrounded by the bad but still fighting bravely.
He glanced down, saw what I was looking at, and then looked at the window. The glowstick wasn’t as bright as a flashlight, but with no drapes the light would be visible for a long distance. “We should probably lose the light,” he muttered.
He grabbed it. Then he brought it up to my face and just gazed down at me, drinking me in while he still could. I bit my lip: it was just like that very first time he’d looked at me, in the prison infirmary. No one had ever made me feel special like he did.
He reluctantly wrapped the glow stick in his fatigue shirt and the room went instantly black. For a second, it was disorienting and scary. Then I reached up, and as soon as my fingertips brushed the warm, firm muscle of his bicep, it was okay.
I felt the tension unwind and the darkness started to take on a different feel: it became private and secret, intensely intimate. It made me bolder: I’d been worrying in the back of my mind about being inexperienced but, in the dark, it was easier to just go for it, to reach up and run my hands over his chest and arms, to do what felt right. I still had a mental image of him naked from when he’d stripped off in prison, but now I got to rebuild it from touch, tracing my palms slowly down over his shoulders and back, then his waist. With each inch of warm skin I touched, the heat pulsed through me deeper, stronger, until I was panting and needy beneath him. My fingers reached the rough fabric of his pants and I groped for his belt, wanting to feel all of him.