Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 15945 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 80(@200wpm)___ 64(@250wpm)___ 53(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 15945 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 80(@200wpm)___ 64(@250wpm)___ 53(@300wpm)
“Ross. Please.” I love how weak she turns when she is in my arms and being touched by my hands. I want nothing more than to bury my face in her honey crotch, but the knock on the window tells me we are at the hotel I booked for the night. I pull off my jacket and give it to her.
“Put this on and don’t say a damn thing.” Like the smart girl she is, she does as instructed. I guide her into the hotel, but on the elevator, I move to the other side. I am too close to the end of my sanity. She has pushed me too far and there is no pulling it back. There is only the ability to contain it until we are alone. Once inside the room, I stop trying to rein in the beast. “Take off your clothes and lay on the bed.”
“I don’t…”
“HOPE!” I shout her name hoping like hell she hears the desperation and infinite rage inside of me. I hope she can fucking see not only how close she has pushed me, but that she can also see the truth of the depth of my need for her. My devotion to her. My utter obsession with her.
Not sure how to take my scorn, she lays on the bed, pulling her clothes off until she is bare before me, nothing covering us. “Satisfied.” Her snarky ass voice asks.
“Not hardly, baby. But I will be. Hands on the headboard.” She does it, but I see the censure in her eyes. I move to the side of the bed and bend my head, kissing her to distract her. Fuck. Who am I kidding? I miss her fucking lips on mine. Click.
I click the first handcuff in place, and she looks at me, shocked and enraged. “What the hell, Ross! Uncuff me.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“Not a chance baby. First, you look like the offering given to Jesus and his men for the last supper. Second, if you want to be loose, you have to pay the toll.”
“What freaking toll, you maniac?” she shouts at the top of her lungs. She has no idea how maniacal I am. But only for her.
“Tell me why you keep running from me.” Her mouth forms an O and I know this is going to be a long night.
CHAPTER 9
HOPE
Who does this motherfucker think he is? Handcuffing me like a criminal or a hooker. Okay that second one makes this sound hot. He made me strip down and lie on the bed and I did it. I know what I wanted to happen between us, but this… talking about my feelings… isn’t it.
“Ayerton Ross Lotus, uncuff me now!” I say, through clenched teeth. I feel so exposed.
“Oh, baby when say my whole name like that I get hard.”
“You were already hard. There’s no way I missed that,” I say sarcastically.
“There’s my tigress. Tell me what I want to know.”
“Uncuff me.”
“That’s not how negotiations work.”
“I’m not a business deal, Ayerton. I’m your…”
“Finish that sentence. You’re my what?”
“Lover,” I hedge.
“Try again.” He tsks, running his finger down my chest and swirling it around my belly button. “All this caramel skin, baby. I want to lick you all over.”
“I literally can’t stop you,” I moan as his fingers dip lower.
“Tell me what I want to know,” he repeats.
“Don’t use your magic fingers against me. It’s not fair,” I whine as he thrusts his finger into me shallowly.
“This magic finger?” he asks as he slowly pumps it in and out of me. “Or this one?” he asks, adding another.
“Yessss,” I hiss.
“Tell me,” he says pulling out of me entirely. I whimper.
“Fine, but I have to tell you everything first. You have to understand why this is hard for me.”
“Tell me everything, Hope.”
“I don’t want to do this to myself again. I fall in and out of love like most people change their underwear. Only, it’s not love. It’s not even lust. It’s a flaw I have. I want it. I want love so bad I make it up. I delude myself into thinking something is real when I know it’s not. It’s not. It’s nothing, but I build it up and build it up. Say something.”
“Why?” he asks. “I mean, what’s missing from your life?”
“That’s just it. Nothing. I told you about my parents, my family. We’re happy. I’m happy. I just want what they have, what they found when they were sixteen and seventeen years old. It’s still going strong. It’s the kind of thing that lasts a lifetime. They struggled a bit. No one cared that they were an interracial couple. It was the late nineties in New York City, but God, people said things about money. My dad was dirt poor and my mom’s family was rich as hell. My grandfather invented a nipple.”