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)
“It’s okay. It’s a hard conversation.”
“One that could have saved your feelings, Tallulah. One I could have had months ago and you’d still be home with me where you belong.” He spoke through his teeth, stroking her hair and fisting it, pulling until he could look down at her upturned face. “I know this, us, is new. But I’m asking you to ride this out with me. Come home and do this. She’ll accept it with time.”
Oh my God.
Burgess was asking for something monumental. Not only to be in a relationship with him, which was enough of a leap for her, in itself. But to essentially . . . co-parent. Be the equivalent of a stepmom to a kid who actively resented her. That was a massive jump from being his fun, new girlfriend. Was it only a matter of days ago they were still pretending she was in his room to give him a sports massage?
“Burgess.”
“I know,” he said gruffly, against her lips.
“That’s a lot. That’s scary.”
“I know.” With the use of her gathered hair, he pulled her head back even more, raking his mouth up the slope of her throat. “God, I miss the way you smell and taste and fucking feel.” Looking into her eyes, he shifted his hips forward so she could feel the growing thickness between his thighs and she openly sobbed. “I’ve been going out of my mind.”
Tallulah slid her knees open wider on the couch and rocked forward, shuddering over the friction of panties on denim. “It’s only been one day.”
“One day in hell feels a lot worse after spending weeks in heaven, Tallulah.”
“I’m heaven?”
“My heaven, yeah.”
The scary unknown might have been a third party in the room, but the need to touch him, revel in his huge, reassuring presence, overruled everything in that moment. “One kiss and we’ll talk this out,” she said, mesmerized by the sculpted shape of his lips. The mint he breathed from his mouth onto hers, the calloused hands that moved so possessively up her thighs and around to her butt, sliding into her panties and gripping her cheeks like he owned them. Because he did.
“Yeah,” he said, his breath beginning to labor against her mouth. “One kiss. Let’s go.”
“I mean, maybe we shouldn’t. What if it turns into more? This is Chloe’s couch.”
“I’ll fuck your mouth anywhere I want. You’re mine.”
“Whoa, yeah, okay.”
Their lips joined hungrily, but so seamlessly, the soft clash felt like rough poetry, and a sense of rightness spouted in the center of her chest and spilled in every direction. Down her thighs, to her fingertips, up behind her eyes like hot pressure. They wolfed each other down—she believed that was the technical description—her body melting into the strength of him, writhing on top of his hardness in pure mimicry of her mouth, which couldn’t get enough of his taste, who he was, the fact that he was there, the bridge that had been built between their chests from nothing into something sturdy that couldn’t be walked across.
Could it be walked across?
There was no thinking about it now, because she was having her neck sucked, her backside molded like clay, moist heat beginning to dampen her underwear in that place they connected, soft rubbing on top of hard. They separated less than a millimeter to ply themselves with oxygen and didn’t bother consulting each other if another kiss was in order, it simply was, but the act of throwing their one-kiss plan out the window stole the rest of their inhibitions, and Tallulah’s hands were suddenly moving on their own, raking down the rough, mountainous terrain of his chest, lower to the fly of his jeans, twisting the button open and opening his zipper as much as she could in their positions.
Burgess broke the kiss, looked down, panting. “What are you doing?”
“I have to touch you,” she said on a rushing exhale.
Briefly, he tipped his head back, making a low sound in his throat. “Tallulah, we were going to fuck as soon as we made it inside the apartment last night. I’m warning you that I’m in a bad, bad way.”
“I’ll take care of you,” she whispered, nipping at his jaw while making more headway with his zipper, lowering it until she could finally slip her hand inside and find the source of his hunger, wrapping her fist around it and stroking, kissing into his guttural groan, their mouths moving in a messy tangle, his flesh swelling and pulsing in her palm. “Better?”
“No.”
“What do you want?”
“You know goddamn well what I want.”
“Here?”
She couldn’t even remember where here was anymore, really. Not with his urgency filling her fist, their connection on the verge of exploding, the debris falling into a new, more permanent and meaningful landscape, their bodies nearly frenzied with the need to pick up where they’d left off last night, when it seemed like they would die unless they had dirty, messy sex.