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)
Languid minutes passed as he showed her so many different kisses—deep ones and tiny, soft ones; teeth-dragging ones and lip-sucking ones. Steam swirled around them, decadent fingertips brushing their skin, leaving them dewy with sweat. She felt his kisses in every nerve ending in her body, felt the growing points of contact between them, how she moved closer and closer until they were touching from chest to hips, moving, rocking.
She understood how they’d fit together.
Slowly, with his breaths gusting against her lips, Fitz pulled away, stilling her with a thumb set gently on her chin. This close, she could see that his cheeks were flushed, his lips wet, so pretty and pink. His chest rose and fell like he’d just done laps around the pool.
“We should stop,” he said, voice tight.
“Did I do okay?”
He blinked, and met her eyes, giving a quiet laugh. “Yeah. You did great.”
Seconds ticked by before he cleared his throat, and the glassiness in his eyes slowly sobered. She grew conscious of their position, the feel of that part of him, the reality of what they’d done, and shifted her hips back, half floating, half perched on his knees.
“See?” He reached up, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “Now you can’t say you’ve never been kissed.”
“You’re right.” Her lips still tingled, and she bit the lower one, dragging it through her teeth. He watched. “Thank you, Fitz.”
He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the side of the hot tub, his smile slowly fading. Worry tightened his brow, but he curved a hand around her side and murmured quietly, “Trust me. It was my pleasure.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
FITZ
Even with all the crazy shit in his past, Fitz had never had an out-of-body experience before. But when he and Ren climbed out of the hot tub, put themselves back together in silence, eyes averted, and stepped into the elevator, it was like everything that happened in the previous hour existed only in a vague fog somewhere behind them. Gone was the loose-limbed heat of the hot tub; their shoulders were now squared, gazes pinned on the closed doors as they rose through the building.
He felt trapped in his own head, unable to think of the best thing to say. She had to know what that was, right? She had to know that he didn’t just want to teach her how to kiss, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted her.
No matter what you’re thinking right now, that was the best kiss I’ve ever had.
I want to see you again when we both get back to Spokane.
It wasn’t until Ren got out on the fifth floor with a quietly mumbled “Good night” and the doors closed again that the truth hit him like a slap: A better man would have said these things out loud to her. Kissing Ren had been the first thing he’d done in a long time that wasn’t motivated by resentment, revenge, or fear. And right now, Fitz stood squarely at the fork in the road.
In his own room, he looked around at the empty darkness, imagining the rest of the night spent alone, with room service or snacks from a vending machine, the television on in the background, a vague, muted drone. A shapeless sadness began to take root, and when he imagined Ren doing the same thing, the amorphous feeling spiked into a pulse of anxiety.
What was he thinking, kissing her and sending her off like that?
He showered at light speed, pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and took the stairs two at a time to the fifth floor and room 546. He knocked once, then again, and leaned in closer to the crack in the doorway. “It’s me, Sunshine.”
A few seconds later, Ren pulled the door open, her hair still loose and wet, a clean towel in her hand. “Hey.”
She stared up at him in confusion, and yeah, he got it. He was being confusing again.
“I was just about to get in the shower,” she told him, waiting for whatever it was he’d come there to say.
“My room was so big and quiet,” he explained, stepping past her. “And it was sort of boring up there alone.” He flopped back onto her bed. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind some company.”
She let the door swing closed but hovered in the entryway, studying him. “I’d be okay, Fitz,” she said finally. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Who says I’m here because I was worried?”
She walked deeper into the room and stood at the foot of the bed, cheeks pink, lips still a little swollen from his gentle attack on them not ten minutes ago. “Come on.”
“What would I be worried about?” he asked, knowing his face wasn’t masking a thing he felt for her.
She laughed. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”