Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“Tallulah,” he said, his tone a cross between formal and winded. “I’m in a position to make you even happier.” He tried to get serious, like he was delivering a business proposal, but her thumbs stroked his ears and he lost the inclination, shuddering. A big bear who just wanted to be petted and scratched. “I’ll bring you here every night, if that’s what you want.”
Tallulah gave a casual head tilt, even though there was dramatic rapping in her chest. “Do you think promising me aquarium trips will make me agree to be your girlfriend?”
“It’s worth a shot.” He framed her face in his hand, studying her features one at a time. Lips, nose, chin, eyes. “If this doesn’t work, I’ll try something else. And something else after that . . .”
He’d stolen her breath. She didn’t think such a thing was possible, but there she stood, unable to find a single ounce of oxygen floating around.
Tallulah hadn’t come to Boston with an eye toward finding a romantic partner. Hadn’t even considered it. She was still finding her sea legs, learning how to live in the real world again without distrust and paranoia. Moreover, she never would have paired herself up with a divorced single father, eleven years her senior, who didn’t like going out or being spontaneous or embracing the unknown. Burgess was mostly set in his ways, unlike her—or who she wanted to be.
Still, even at twenty-six, she knew this feeling wouldn’t come around again.
Nor would she find someone so caring and noble and steadfast.
This man was a treasure, and giving up would be something she regretted for a long time. Maybe even the rest of her life. So, she wouldn’t. She physically couldn’t. He’d slowly knit himself into the fabric of her existence.
“What if I agree to be your girlfriend regardless of aquarium trips?” she said quietly, watching his big chest cease to rise and fall. Tallulah ran her hands down those significant pecs, his hard stomach and back up, nearly purring at the access she had to this perfect beast, joining her wrists behind his neck again. God, she couldn’t stop touching him. “What would you say to that?”
A knot climbed in his throat. “Tallulah, are you being serious?”
“Yes,” she said, lifting onto her tiptoes and kissing the underside of his bearded chin. “I want to be your girlfriend. Do you still want to be my boyfriend?”
“Do I—” he growled, jolting a little. “Yes.”
“I guess it’s settled then.” She rubbed their mouths together, giving the seam a playful lick. “Do we get official T-shirts or something?”
“Tallulah,” he said raggedly, lifting her off the ground without warning, making her yelp. Scratch that, he literally threw her up into the air and caught her with a forearm beneath her ass, making it oh so easy to circle his waist with her legs, giving her a very rare chance to look down into the face of a giant, instead of up. And her heart was flooding with so much happiness, her decision was the right one. She knew it down to the tips of her toes. While she planted kisses all over Burgess’s face, he marched her right, then left, his gait stilted. “Where the hell are we? I have no sense of direction right now.”
“Then why don’t we stay right here?” she breathed, pressing their foreheads together and lingering, memorizing the sensation of his breath, how it joined with her own.
“Okay, yeah. Right here. Fine. I can’t fucking believe it.” He’d gone hoarse. “You’re my girlfriend.”
“You’re my boyfriend.” She coaxed his mouth open with brushes of her lips, their tongues meeting in a single touch, a groan shaking through the ample breadth of his body. “Should we talk about what that means?”
“You’re really going to give me specifics?” Intensely hopeful eyes searched hers. “No more pretending it’s a massage?”
“No more pretending it’s a massage.” She kissed him through his visible show of relief and gratitude, wishing she’d given it to him sooner. “Being your girlfriend means you’re no longer my bodyguard. When we go on adventures together, it’s simply a date.”
“I’m still going to guard you,” he blustered.
“I know.”
His chest vibrated against her. “What else does being exclusive mean?”
“Exactly what you said. We’re exclusive.”
“You’re all mine,” he rasped, drawing her head to one side and sucking hard on her neck, like a barbarian claiming a mate. And dude, it was really, really working for her.
“Uh-huh.” She slid down his body a couple of inches until his erection was lodged between her thighs, rocking herself against it once, twice. “And you’re all mine.”
“Ah, gorgeous. I’ve been yours since California.”
A severe tug of her heart made her slightly dizzy. “I’m going to come to your games.”
“And wear my sweatshirt?”
“I might have to spring for a jersey.”
He let out a torrent of breath and dropped back a step, as if that possibility was too much for him to handle. “I won’t be able to concentrate.”