Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 183663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 918(@200wpm)___ 735(@250wpm)___ 612(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 183663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 918(@200wpm)___ 735(@250wpm)___ 612(@300wpm)
Her arms curled beneath her chest, Holland kicks her leg out from under the sheet in a wild sort of abandon. My hand lifts to her hair like a magnet to metal, my fingers beginning to sift through the silky strands.
I’m nervous. The kind of nervous I’ve never been before. I want to wake her and spill my guts, yet I’m afraid to. What if she still says no? What if she refuses me?
Then I guess the Duffys will be entertaining siege-style houseguests for longer than they anticipated.
My hand follows the path of her narrow back, my fingers tracing the bumps and indents in her spine. Next to me, Holland releases a breathy whisper, the noise not quite a moan as I fit my fingers to the dimples above the upside-down heart shape of her backside. I rest the meat of my palm against its rise. Rest. Settle. Press. Until she begins to move with it, grinding herself against the mattress.
An intensity washes through me as she begins to stir, the ripple of her body’s pleasure making my heart trip and my throat burn. I slide my arm under her waist, gathering her to me as, with my other hand, I lift her thigh over mine and nudge my rigid cock between her legs.
Nudge? The thing behaves like a heat-seeking missile.
But I can’t. Not yet
“Holland, darling. Wake up.”
She purrs, pushing her arse against me, and my God, she’s so wet. Wet from want. Sticky with cum. She feels heavenly as my cock glides against her. As I press my nose in her hair and inhale the scent of her.
“Holland, what are you doing to me?” I move the hair from her neck, pressing my mouth to her nape. My gut tightens, a seismic ripple of want travelling through me as she reaches down, her dainty fingers caressing the crown of my cock.
“Please,” she whispers, pushing back against me, the angle of her body changing as she presses the crown of my cock to her opening.
“Wait.” I can’t quite believe that I do, but I lift her hand away, pressing it flat to the mattress. “Not yet.” My tongue slips across the line of her shoulder as I push my fingers between hers. A scrape of teeth. A press of my lips before I bring my mouth to the shell of her ear and whisper, “You want me.”
“Yes.” Her admission is barely a breath.
“How much, my darling.”
“I need you, Alexander.” She tries to lift her head, but I continue my sensual assault, kissing her neck and shoulders as though it’s my fetish. “Please.” She pulls against my hands, tries to twist from under me.
“Do you want me enough to spend a lifetime with me?” I rest my head against hers as she inhales a gasp. “I love you, Holland. I’ve loved you for weeks. Forgive me. I just didn’t know it was meant to feel like this.”
I feel the moment she gives in. The moment she takes me at my word. The moment she stops denying.
And as I slide myself inside her, it’s the beginning of everything.
HOLLY
“I love you.” Alexander’s knees are snug behind mine, his arms banded tight around my ribs. And I feel . . . happy. Like a girl on cloud nine. Like a girl who is loved.
“I know.” There’s a tremor of laughter in my words. “I heard you the first hundred times.”
“Then you can hear it a hundred times more.” His lips are soft against my shoulder, the rasp of hair on his chin not so much. Yet it’s just as delicious. “A thousand times more.” His finger reaches up, pressing to my chin as he turns my head, bringing my lips to meet his. “A lifetime of more, God willing.”
Our mouths meet in a soft, teasing kiss.
“I can’t believe you knew,” I whisper, wondering on some level if I should be pissed while finding I don’t have it in me to be.
Call it post-coital bliss. Call it being loved. Being in love.
He manipulated me no more than I did him. And last night, out in the garden, there was no question of me refusing to come to him. I’d told myself the joke was on him. I wasn’t about to sleep with him for fear of him telling Griffin. I was going to sleep with him because I could. Because I wanted to. Because I needed him.
And my lofty plan was going so well until I refused to kiss him.
I’m not yours, your grace, and I never will be.
A frisson of discomfort washes over me. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it. Accepting Alexander’s love, it turns out, is easy. Accepting that a duke loves me is a little harder to get my mind around. I know it makes no sense, but there it is. The duke and Alexander are one and the same, and I’ll just have to deal with my own sense of inadequacies. Get over myself.