Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 106935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
She opens it, and I waste no time. “I was wrong. I was the one who left something at the hotel.”
I’ve confused her even more. “What did you leave there?” she asks.
“You,” I say emphatically, standing in the doorway. Then, because I have to earn her, because you should always earn all the good things in life, I stop saying things like we can’t do this again, and I start saying let’s give this a chance. “I want to be with you for real,” I say without any finesse, just speaking the truth of my heart. “I don’t want to stop. And I don’t want to sneak around anymore. I don’t want to slip out of your home before the sun rises. I don’t want to walk around an event pretending I feel nothing for you, when I feel…everything.”
Her smile can’t seem to contain itself. It’s instant, a star lighting up the whole night sky. “Everything? That’s a lot, Nick.”
There she goes. Teasing me, like she did the day I met her. It feels so right.
“I feel absolutely everything for you, Layla Mayweather and Lola Jones,” I say, still completely serious. I have to be. I’m the one who has to make this choice and hope she’ll go along with me.
“I need to tell David about us,” I say. “I was going to ask your permission to tell him as soon as I could do it in person. I was going to say all this to you tomorrow, but I can’t wait any longer. My heart hurts when I’m with you but not with you.”
Some of the tension leaves me—the stress of holding the door closed on my emotions. In its place comes a new, hopeful tension as I pray she’s willing to take the risk with me.
Layla doesn’t make me wait. She reaches for my tie—the ruby red one I wore tonight—and tugs hard on it. “Get inside.”
Leaving all the tension behind, I kick the door shut behind me. “I won’t say a word unless it’s okay with you. But I couldn’t wait any longer to tell you. I would have told you this morning, but then—”
“Oh, shut up. You found what you left behind.”
She kisses me, and it feels, at last, like the start of something.
It feels like the start of everything.
I’m in her bedroom, lying down on the king-size bed, my hands parked behind my head, desire filling every cell in my body. “Undress for me, beautiful,” I tell her.
After a good long stretch of dizzying kisses, we finally made it to the bedroom, where she pushed me down on the mattress and stripped me. Fair’s fair. Now I want to enjoy the show.
“If you insist.” Layla nibbles on the corner of her lips, then lifts her hands behind her neck, untying the pink strap of her dress.
When it falls, freeing her beautiful tits, I growl.
I’m up and out of bed in a heartbeat. “I’ll finish the job,” I command, and I slide the dress off her lush body, kissing her as I go. Her neck, her throat, her nipples. Then I’m down on my knees, kissing her soft belly.
I savor the jasmine scent of her skin. The feel of her soft flesh. The way she shudders under my hands. I press a kiss to the top of her panties and then whisk those off her too.
She steps out of them, roaming her hands through my hair, gazing down at me as I look up at her. “Are we really doing this?” she asks with wonder.
I kiss her stomach reverently. “We are, sweetheart. You’re mine. I need you,” I tell her, desperate for her once again.
Her soft fingers tighten in my hair, and she forces me to look up at her. “I need you too. But you have to be here for me.”
My brow knits, and I rise, sweep her hair from her face. We’re both naked, and it’s an odd moment. Standing in our birthday suits, pressing pause on the fucking. But her concerns are too important to ignore. “I will be,” I tell her, meaning it completely.
“I want you all the way. I want you in my life,” she adds, emphatic.
“That’s what I want too,” I say, then I lift a brow. “I thought that was clear?”
She swallows, maybe a little uncomfortably. “It is. But I just want to make sure. I’ve never felt this way. I don’t want to feel like this and then have you walk away. If…”
I get her meaning. I haven’t done the hard thing yet. I haven’t declared us. But she deserves this promise. She’s giving me not just her body, but her big, beautiful heart. “I promise, Layla,” I tell her, with all the conviction I feel. “I’m not backing down. You can trust me.”
She cups my cheek, then runs her thumb along my jaw. “I do trust you. I always have.”