Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
“You’re not so different from me. You just don’t know how to believe otherwise.” Again he didn’t respond right away, but that was Riven, so I did my best to keep the conversation going. “What about Texas?”
“Fuck no.”
“Good point. I don’t know what I was thinking.” From there, I just started naming states and Riven would veto them, or say maybe. I asked him about things he liked, and he said he didn’t know.
“I might have been in my midtwenties, but I didn’t even know who I was before I got locked up. Still don’t know if I do.” Which was enough to break my heart. Riven had been through too much shit and deserved so much better.
We kept talking—about books he’d read in prison, and about people he’d met. He had some scary stories and some cool ones too. He told me about fights he’d gotten into and about a man who had been incarcerated since he was eighteen—how he’d gotten his GED and a college degree in prison because he wanted to be a therapist when he got out.
“He was released when you were still inside?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think it happened? That his dream came true?”
The only response was his breathing before he nodded. “I refused to believe anything else.”
Those words did something to my heart. Riven McKenna was special, and damned if I didn’t want to do everything in my power to make sure he knew that.
We talked for hours. I was tired but didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to ruin this moment we’d found together, where we were on the same wavelength and Riven had lowered the walls he’d spent his whole life building around himself.
We talked until the sun peeked through the blinds, telling me time had gone on without us and morning was already here. We hadn’t left the bed all night, just lay there, naked and sharing, and Riven had allowed it.
I think maybe he’d needed it.
We were both on our sides now, faces inches apart. My body trembled, the need to kiss him, to taste him and finally know the flavor of Riven’s mouth, building higher and higher until I couldn’t hold it back anymore. He’d said I could try to kiss him and he wouldn’t let me, so I leaned in, felt the initial brush of his chapped lips against mine when he didn’t pull away.
It shocked me, so unexpected that I jerked back, hating myself for breaking the moment, but not ever wanting to do something Riven didn’t want me to do.
But then it was his lips that crushed mine, his tongue that pushed into my mouth. He tasted like Riven. I didn’t know how to explain it other than that—maybe broken dreams fused together by the hope I tried to feed him. He rolled on top of me, pinning me to the bed, our tongues a tangled mess of urgency and hunger.
I’d kissed a lot of men in my life, but it had never been like this, never so all-consuming, each sweep of our tongues amping up the desire I felt for him.
Riven rutted against me, his hot, hard dick rubbing mine. His hand fisted in my hair, the other laced our fingers together, like something had switched his brain off, and with it out of commission, amplified his need.
My balls drew up, tingles running the length of my body as I arched toward him, flashes behind my eyelids, cum spurting between our bodies. Riven bit my lip, going tense and rigid above me as his release joined mine on our stomachs. He kept kissing, kept rutting, massaging our cum into our skin, before he pulled away and rolled off.
Lifting a hand, I touched my swollen bottom lip where he’d bitten me…and smiled.
“Jesus,” Riven said, and I looked over to see him watching me.
“I can’t help it. That was hot.”
He shook his head, then sat up. I was pretty sure he was smiling too.
*
I hated leaving Riven’s place that morning, but I couldn’t stay forever. He was quiet like always. He’d showered after he’d gotten out of bed, and then I’d done the same. When I said I should head out, he nodded in agreement, not acting like anything had changed between us when he said he would see me at work the next day.
And I guessed nothing had changed, not really. I was just all up in my feels for whatever reason, and walking around with a bitten lip that felt like I had been claimed.
I wanted to be claimed by Riven.
My heart punched against my chest when I pulled up at my house and noticed my brother’s car in the driveway. I jumped out and saw the doorknob missing on my front door. Inside, food containers and soda and beer bottles were strewn all over the table, along with weed. Rex was passed out on my couch in his boxers.