Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
All.
Night.
Long.
Mitchell remained crouched before the fire when she walked out wearing his shirt and pants, her hair down around her face.
Christ. This woman is fucking perfect.
“All yours.” She walked toward him, her hips swaying slightly as she moved.
It took an act of God for him to tear his vision away from her waist and pull it up to her face.
“Can I help?”
He rose. “Nope, all set. Didn’t want it to burn out overnight.” Great, now he was rambling.
“Okay.” She headed to the bed.
Fingers digging into his palm, he went to the bathroom, grabbing his clothing on the way. “Be right back.”
Not only rambling but also stating the obvious. Tonight, he was like a boy hoping to get lucky for the first time. Scowling as he swapped out pants for boxers, he yanked them up. Even his hands were sweating.
He blew out the candle that she’d lit in the bathroom, plunging the room into darkness. The low glow from the embers gave him enough light to see to the bed where Hope had already crawled in. His eye twitched as he saw the lump of pillows she’d erected as a wall between them, but he held his tongue.
Sliding into bed, he immediately rolled toward her, aware that she remained on her back…for the moment.
“Can I tell you something, Hope Roman?”
Mitchell gave in to his urge to touch her hair while he waited for an answer. Using two fingers, he wound her curls around them, loving the sensation as they pulled over his skin. She hadn’t used the hair tie one of the other women had provided her. All her wild curls were free.
“If it’s whether you have permission to touch my hair, I’d say you’re late in asking.”
There was no heat to her words and he was fairly certain he heard her purr low in her throat.
“Would it help if I said your hair was on my side of the pillow wall?” He dipped his head slightly, allowing himself to smell her hair.
“No, but as long as you don’t stop stroking, I’ll allow it.” Hope moved closer to him, even with the wall still between them.
“I want to stroke it all right.” The words were free before he could even consider censoring them. He waited for her to pull away or snap at him for his comment.
She didn’t do either. Her breathing hitched before she wrangled it under control.
“What did you want to tell me?”
It may have been his imagination but he swore he heard a hint of breathlessness in her question. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember anything beyond the softness of her hair in his fingers and a craving for it to move along his skin.
The room was dark except for the faint glow of the banked fire. It didn’t offer a lot, but it allowed him enough light to see the curvature of her face. Releasing her hair, he touched her left cheek before turning her head to him.
She didn’t fight him and they were face-to-face, sharing the pillow wall. Her warm breath fanned over his mouth.
“I’m going to kiss you, Hope Roman.”
Leaning in, he thought he heard her mutter, “About damn time,” but he didn’t stop to ask or confirm his suspicion. He simply kissed her.
As her lips brushed against his, he realized he’d made another mistake. There wasn’t now, nor would there ever be, anything “simply” when it came to this woman.
A low rumble slipped free as her mouth molded to his. Mitchell slid his hand up from her cheek to sink into her hair, needing more of it cascading over his skin. Needing more of her.
Possessiveness flared to life and he knew this moment was changing his life…forever. True, it had changed the moment his and Hope Roman’s lives had intersected but this was the final nail in the coffin, for lack of a better phrase.
She reached over their makeshift wall and dug her fingers into his biceps as a small mewl of want escaped her.
Nothing mattered to him but this woman and right now. Not the snowstorm. Not his mother. Not his ex and not his company. All his focus zeroed in on the woman sharing the bed with him.
The kiss changed. No longer tender or exploratory, it became a tangled mess of hungry need, their tongues tasting, thrusting, and tangling with each other. God, he couldn’t get enough of her. His cock, hard and thick, pushed angrily against the pillows between them.
A wall he wanted to toss to the floor. There shouldn’t be a damn thing between them. Not even clothing as far as he was concerned.
Suddenly, she wrenched out of his arms. “Oh God, Mitchell.”
No!
Hand on the back of her head, he yanked her to his mouth once more, not willing to give up the taste of her, not yet.
God, not ever.