Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 100523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Or maybe a lot. That’s new for me too. Opening up like that about my feelings.
“That makes perfect sense. Sometimes I get moody when I have a bad day too,” she says, then looks around at the nearby crowds. “And when I have a bad day, I don’t want to be around everyone.” She tips her forehead to the exit. “So, do you want to get out of here and make dinner?”
It’s like a weight is lifted off me for real. A weight I’ve felt since last night when I shut her down. Since I shut me down. “I do.”
On the way out, I swing by a flower stall and buy her a bouquet of wildflowers. I hand them to her as we leave. “I love these,” she says, smelling them.
“I know.”
The look in her eyes says we both learned a little something from tonight’s lesson.
We go to my place and make dinner—the sea urchin thingy, some eggplants and mushrooms, and some rotisserie chicken I picked up earlier. As we cook, I tell her more of what I didn’t say earlier. “I didn’t think you’d want to know,” I admit.
“But I do want to know,” she says.
She doesn’t add as your friend.
I’m sure that’s what she means though. And I’m sure I’m okay with it. Truly. I have to be.
When we’re nearly done eating, my phone alarm beeps. Ask Rachel about Halloween party. I scan the screen.
Her eyes light up as she reads it. “A party?”
“You like to dress up?”
“I do,” she says.
“Good. But once we’re done eating, I’d like to undress you.”
She sets her napkin next to the plate with a flourish. “What a coincidence. I’m done.”
24
FACE TIME
Rachel
Three things I never thought I’d know.
1. Carter’s bed is bigger than mine, and I’m going to be spending a lot of time in it on my back in the next hour.
2. His brown eyes go from warm to molten when he touches me.
3. Make that sizzling, as he’s just discovered the last remnants of the mark he left on me last week.
We’re standing near the foot of his bed. My shirt is off, and he runs his fingers around the border of the bruise above my breasts, staring at it, mesmerized, seeming proud of it. “This is beautiful on you,” he murmurs in a voice that’s deep and full of longing. He can’t take his eyes off it.
“All week it felt like my secret,” I confess.
He dips his face to it, kisses it a little reverently. “I can give you more secrets,” he says, pulling back to regard the last traces of the mark on my flesh as he skims a hand over my white lace bralette. “But first, remember the other night when I said it’s fun to ask for what you want in bed?”
How could I forget? It’s one of the first lessons he taught me. Something I should have known at this point in my life. But something that wasn’t part of my education. “I do.”
With a satisfied smirk, he plucks at the fabric of his Henley. “Take my shirt off,” he rasps out as he gives the instruction. “I like it when you strip me.” There’s a hint of vulnerability in his voice right along with heat.
Those are two things that feel brand new and wonderful to me—heat and vulnerability in a man.
With trembling but excited fingers, I reach for the hem and slowly peel it off, savoring the reveal of his muscles and his skin as I go. When it’s off, he takes my hands and presses them against his chest then runs them down it, shuddering as I go.
I’m learning so much about him after dark. He’s really into my hands on his chest and his stomach. He likes when I touch his shoulders, his pecs, his abs. And I’m the cartographer who likes mapping his body.
“There’s something I like to do in bed,” he says a little dreamily as I explore him more.
“What is it?”
He stops my exploration, holding my hands in his for a second. “I need to talk. I need to tell you the things I want to do to you. I want to work you up with words.”
I knew that about him, but a pulse beats between my legs as he says it so plainly. “It’s working. Keep going,” I whisper.
“Good,” he says, as he unbuttons the top button on my jeans then teases at the zipper. “Because I want to spread you out on my bed and spend a good long time with my face buried between your thighs. That work for you?”
I love his lessons so much. “Yes,” I say, ever the eager student.
He tucks a finger under my chin, making me meet his gaze as he asks one more question: “Think you’d like that, sweetheart?”
He didn’t ask if I do like it. He knows my past hasn’t given me a lot of clues into my own likes and dislikes. But he wants to give me my fantasies. To make them real. And I want to discover what they are with him. So, taking a cue from him, I say invitingly, “Find out.”