Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 125213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Slowly, she released, head falling back slightly even as her fingers kept their pace on the keys. The music surrounded us, the soundtrack to a moment that felt so weighted.
I let my hands explore, sliding them up to cup the back of her neck, to brush my knuckles along her jaw, to destroy her braid as I ran my fingers roughly through it to massage her scalp.
Her breath was as shallow as mine when I maneuvered to sit on the bench next to her, straddling it and admiring the way the soft light through my rain-streaked windows hit the side of her face. I cupped that gorgeous face in one hand, thumb resting over her ear, fingers curling at the nape of her neck. When I ran my thumb along her bottom lip, I wet my own, and her mouth parted to reward me with a sweep of warm breath.
Her eyelids fluttered shut, head tilting to lean into my touch only a moment before she stopped playing. The silence of my apartment was jarring in the absence of the melody, a heavy quiet that wrapped around us before I noticed the faint sounds the music had hidden before.
Rain drumming.
Wind whistling.
The city outside thrummed with its own rhythm, as alive as the pulse between us.
She turned to me, eyes opening to lock onto mine.
And that’s when I realized she’d been crying.
I could just barely make out the gleaming proof on her cheeks, her watery eyes watching me as her nose flared, her bottom lip wobbling.
“Mia…” I croaked.
“No,” she whispered, her eyes falling to my chest. She wrapped her hand around my wrist, holding me steady where I still cupped her face. “I don’t want to talk about it. Please, just…” She rolled her lips together, a fresh tear sneaking free as she lifted her gaze to mine. I wiped that tear with my thumb, feeling it burn my skin like a liquid fire. “Can you kiss me?”
I frowned, stroking her cheek with my thumb and willing her to talk to me, but she shook her head before I could even ask again.
“Aleks, please. Kiss me.” She fisted her hand in my sleep shirt, twisting. “Please. Please.”
A blink, and we were kids again, alone in her bedroom, those exact words rolling off her lips.
I’d been scared then — scared of her father, of the repercussions, of not being what she needed, what she deserved. I was so hellbent on being respectful, not just of her dad’s wishes, but of her.
Tonight, I didn’t care if I wasn’t good enough.
I wanted her so badly, I’d risk being her mistake.
“Only if you agree.”
“Agree to what?”
“To let me kiss you everywhere.”
Surprise flitted across her expression for only a breath before her eyes heated, her next breath bottoming out.
“To let me do more than just kiss you,” I clarified, sucking in a breath through my nose as my hand traveled down, fingertips tracing her jaw, her chin, until I splayed my hand over her neck and curled my fingers around it. “To let me ruin you in every way I’ve ever imagined.”
A heated promise punctuated with a tightened grip.
A sweet surrender underlined with a longing sigh.
One word, riding on a breath of tentative release.
“Yes.”
Give In To Me
Mia
“Yes.”
How that word reverberated through me.
How it echoed off every beaten, battered wall I was tired of holding up.
How it filled me with buzzing, palpable anticipation.
And no sooner than it had escaped my lips, it was silenced by his.
He angled his mouth over mine, sure and swift, both of us inhaling at the contact. I gave into him with that breath, and he seemed to claim me with his.
This wasn’t a kiss for the sake of a photograph. This wasn’t a sweet, staged caress for the paparazzi.
This was carnal.
This was a hand, warm and strong where it gripped my neck and pulled me into him. It was a mouth so demanding and dominant I knew I’d never really been kissed by Aleks before — not like this. It was a guttural groan from his throat that elicited a desperate whimper from my own when our tongues touched.
It was heaven.
It was hell.
It was surrender and assassination in tandem.
He wanted to ruin me.
I was desperate to be ruined.
And I climbed into his lap with any last shred of apprehension blowing away in the hurricane wind.
“Fuck, Mia,” he growled into my mouth, his tongue sweeping over mine as I straddled his thighs. “Say it again. Tell me you want this.”
“I want this,” I promised, rolling against him, grinding myself along the thick bulge straining through his joggers as his hands clamped down on my hips. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to stop me or pull me down harder, his own hips bucking up to meet mine in an eager thrust.
“Tell me you want me to destroy you.”