Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
“Lennon . . . ,” he began, his voice gravelly. She shivered as though the word—her name on his lips—had come to life somehow and scraped across her skin. Her nipples pebbled, and his eyes flared. “Maybe we . . . are you sure?” he asked. “Do you want this?”
This. Him. Them. “Is this against your brotherhood oath too?” she asked, to infuse some lightness into the moment. Because he’d paused, and now she was questioning it, too, despite the fact that her body ached for him. This. It suddenly seemed filled with far more gravity than she understood. And maybe he did; maybe that was the look in his eyes that she didn’t comprehend. But he laughed softly at her question, bringing his eyes to hers. “No. I just don’t want you to regret doing something in a moment of . . . well, after today.”
“I want this, Ambrose. I want you.” His gaze held to hers, and he must have seen her certainty—and perhaps her need—because he brought his lips back to hers, and then the next thing she knew, she was in his arms and he was carrying her through the living room and down the very short hallway to her bedroom.
He placed her down gently on the bed, pushing her robe aside, his gaze roaming over her naked skin. The look on his face . . . he seemed awestruck, and it made the shyness she’d momentarily felt at being naked in front of him melt away. “You are so beautiful, Lennon,” he said.
She smiled, holding out her hand to him. He kicked his shoes off and then quickly removed his clothes before climbing into bed with her.
They kissed again, and their kisses were both languorous and filled with urgency. She relished his taste, his scent, the way his hard, honed body felt above hers, and the velvety roughness of his skin. She allowed herself to get lost in him, and it felt so good, so necessary. It was beautiful, he was beautiful, and the way he looked at her made her feel so beautiful too. His expression looked like she’d imagine on a person gazing at the Grand Canyon, or the first snowfall. Mesmerized. Entranced. Appreciative. His hand trembled slightly as it moved over her skin, exploring her, and reexamining the places that made her gasp or moan.
His hand lingered between her thighs, and she thought she might scream with frustration before he parted her with his fingers, and she gasped with pleasure, leaning her head back into the pillow as he stroked and teased, nearly driving her to the edge. “Condom?” he gritted. “Please tell me you have a condom?”
A what? She could barely think through the fog of lust. A condom. No, she didn’t. Wait—yes, she did! “The closet,” she said, as though she’d just remembered the buried treasure amid her clothing. With the raise of his brow, he climbed out of bed, and she was treated to the view of his muscular back as he opened the door and looked inside.
“Shelf to your left,” she said.
He reached in, and when he turned her way, he was holding the ridiculous visor with condoms hanging from it that had been passed around at the bar from woman to woman during a coworker’s bachelorette shindig. She’d forced herself to go to that and left the moment she could, still wearing that stupid hat that was now actually the most beautiful, wonderful creation she’d ever seen.
Ambrose tore one of the condoms off, climbed back into bed, and slid the protection on as his mouth returned to hers, her hormones taking up the same dance again as though the music had only briefly paused but the desire to revel had not. She almost laughed at the silly nature of her thoughts and that dumb hat that had saved the moment, just all of it. Of him. And how much she’d needed this brief vacation from reality and also from herself.
His mouth came to her breast, his tongue lapping at her nipple before he gave one long suck, causing a lightning rod of arousal to shoot between her legs, her hips bucking toward his hand. “Please,” she said, the word ripped from her throat. She needed him inside her or she’d lose her mind. Her skin felt charged, her nerve endings vibrating with the need for release.
Their eyes met as he lined himself up at her entrance and then surged inside, his lids closing as his lips parted, expression contorting in bliss. Oh God. Oh my God. And then his hips began to move.
She watched him as he thrust inside her, his dark lashes lying in a crescent beneath his eyes. They were thick and fringed, and there was something beautifully boyish about them that was so contradictory to the muscular breadth of his shoulders beneath her palms and the masculine scent of his skin. And of course, the way his body was moving over her, and inside her, a steady pace that was nudging her higher with every quickened press. He’d been a study in contrasts to her since the moment they’d met, but one thing she could not deny was her attraction to him or this thrilling feeling of watching his reaction to her. Watching the way he was trying so mightily to hold on to control, and almost managing but not quite.