Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“You?”
“Yeah,” he said, and smiled. “Why not?”
“Why not?” she repeated. There was a storm of words in her thoughts. “You’re confusing, that’s why.”
Ren noticed that he didn’t ask her what she meant. He only said, “I’m sorry.” He lifted a hand, dragging his fingertips through the bubbles again. “If it helps, I want to be less confusing.”
She swallowed, shaking all over, wanting to dissect that but not having the faintest idea where to start. “It’s a very nice offer, but I don’t know how to do it, and I wouldn’t want you to have to suffer through my fumbling.”
“I would show you. Nobody’s suffering here.”
She blinked and looked away. Was this a normal thing to offer? He said it like it was, just threw it out so casually. Inside her, hunger violently thrummed just beneath the surface of her skin. She wanted this. She wanted him. Even if that was all it was—a lesson in kissing—she wanted to feel it, just one time. “Okay,” she said finally.
For a split second he looked shocked. And then his shoulders relaxed, and he reached for her. “Then come here.”
She jerked her head back to stare at him. “Wh—Now?”
“Why not?”
Across the expanse of the hot tub, he found her hand and tugged her through the bubbling water to rest between his parted knees. Her own knees hit the bench and he shifted, gripping the backs of her thighs and floating her easily onto his lap, so that she was straddling him, with one knee on either side of his hips.
The air rushed from her lungs in a gasp, and she reached for his shoulders to keep from sinking down fully onto him.
“This okay?” he whispered.
She’d never been so close to anyone before for more than the duration of a brief hug, and her mind had gone completely blank. She nodded.
“Words, Sunshine. Lesson one: When you’re with a guy, you need to tell him that what he’s doing is okay. If it’s not, he should stop.”
“It’s okay. I’m okay.”
“Good.” He swallowed, finding the fingers of one of her hands on his shoulder and guiding them higher. “Maybe you want to cup his face, like this.” He brought her trembling hand to his jaw. Her eyes followed the movement, riveted, as he set her fingers on his skin, molding them with his own hand. Without thinking, she brushed a thumb over his cheek. His skin glowed under the dim lights, his eyes darting to hers.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“No. It’s good. Do what feels natural.”
With that permission, she moved an inch lower, drawing the pad of her thumb across the swell of his bottom lip. It was so much softer than she’d imagined, so smooth and full. He pressed a kiss there and she looked up, meeting his eyes.
“Good,” he said, eyes dark. Her other hand slipped absently down to his chest. She could feel the pounding of his heart under her fingertips. “Still okay?” he asked.
He had one hand on her lower back, the other wrapped around the top of her thigh. His body was strong and steady beneath hers. Ren swallowed, starting to answer only with a nod, and then remembered: “Yes.”
“How does it feel so far?”
“Really nice.”
He smiled at this. “Good.” He began to close the distance between them, so close that he was out of focus, and she had to shut her eyes. She could feel his breath on her parted lips, the way his fingers had slid higher and curled around the back strap of her bathing suit.
“You’re doing so good,” he whispered, just an inch away. “And remember,” he said, so close, so quiet. His nose brushed against hers, and his other thumb moved in soft circles near the crease of her thigh.
“Remember?” she repeated mindlessly, breaths short and stuttering.
“When you do this,” he said, and his lips just barely brushed over hers, “you can stop whenever you want.”
“I don’t want to stop.”
She sucked in a breath at the first full press of his mouth; the sensation inside her felt like falling. She’d never ridden a roller coaster before, but she imagined it was something like this, right at the very top, a free fall into joyful abandon. Her stomach had to be somewhere near her throat; she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. Fitz pulled away like he wanted to check in, but Ren slid her hand to the back of his neck, pulling him close again. The heat pressing up from beneath her skin felt almost unbearable, and when he carefully swiped his tongue over hers, she felt a different kind of hunger, a new kind of need. She’d never experienced this sweet tension spiraling through her body, heavy and warm.
He moved a hand to cup her face and tilted her head to fit him better, the hand on her back moving to her hip to pull her closer. She was so conscious of every tiny movement and point of pressure—his thighs beneath her, the power of his arms, the gentle scratch of his stubble against her lips and cheeks. She understood now on a deeper, savage level why people did this, why people fought for it, lost themselves in search of it.