Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 121296 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121296 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
There’s no answer. The soft sounds keep coming.
I frown. Worry wins out over hesitation. I turn the knob. The door creaks open on a scene I could never have expected.
The room is bathed in moonlight, cool and silver, throwing soft shadows across the walls and the messy tangle of sheets on the bed. My stomach drops as my eyes adjust slowly to the scattered mess of Grace’s life spilled across the room: her laptop sitting precariously on the nightstand, screen reflecting a cold square of moonlight, a flannel shirt draped over the back of the chair, next to the wide-brimmed cowboy hat Lennon insisted on buying her, her pink lace bra hooked lazily over the bedpost. I swallow hard, dragging my gaze anywhere but there.
Grace isn’t sitting up crying like I pictured. She’s asleep. Deep under, it looks like. One arm flung over her pillow. Dark hair wild across the bed.
The sounds aren’t sobs.
They’re something else entirely.
I freeze, muscles going rigid as I realize what I’m seeing.
Grace shifts against the sheets, her hips rocking almost imperceptibly against a pillow wedged between her thighs. Her breath catches, low and soft. One bare leg slides against the mattress. Her oversized sleep shirt has ridden high over her hips, exposing enough smooth skin to send a jolt of raw heat straight between my legs.
She moans, long and deep.
Fuck.
I should leave. Turn around. Back out before this crosses a line I can’t uncross.
But I can’t. I stand frozen, breathing shallow, pulse thundering in my ears.
The next gasp is sharper. Grace shifts again, and my eyes drag unwillingly to where the thin cotton of her shirt has slipped, exposing the perfect curve of one bare breast, the tip tight and flushed.
I swallow hard, throat dry, and body aching.
My dick is already rock-hard against the thin fabric of my shorts, humiliation burning at the edges of the desire curling deep inside me. My hand twitches at my side, useless, aching. I want—God help me—I want to trace the curve of her waist, smooth my palm over the tension in her hips, steal the sound of my name from her mouth again. I squeeze my fists tighter to stop myself.
Leave. Now.
But I don’t.
The air is charged like the second before a lightning strike as Grace lets out another soft, broken sound, her hips grinding slowly as her body chases something even her sleeping mind won’t let go of.
“Mmmmm, ah, ah, ah.”
I’m rooted to the floor like a fucking criminal, mesmerized and disgusted with myself all at once.
Another low moan. I stagger back half a step, heart pounding out of rhythm.
Jesus Christ.
I don’t know how long I stand there, caught between wanting and fleeing, but then everything changes. Her body tenses, arching slightly, and the movement is elegant and desperate all at once.
Her release comes fast, her breath stuttering in the quiet like a spark lighting dry tinder.
“Mmmm—ohhh—ohhhhhhhhh.” She exhales long and low.
I stand open-mouthed, stunned, watching the impossible beauty of Grace’s sleeping orgasm and hating myself for it. Her body goes still, breath slowing to soft, uneven pants. The sheets fall in lazy folds around her hips. The air feels thicker somehow, pressing in on my skin like I’ve been caught somewhere I should never have stepped. I swallow hard and drag my gaze upward.
Her face is flushed, cheeks pink in the moonlight, lips parted like she’s tasting the air. Strands of dark hair cling to her temple as her chest rises and falls in an unsteady rhythm.
I clench my fists so tightly my nails bite into my palms, shifting my weight to finally leave, and that tiny movement on the wrong floorboard cuts through the silence with a creak. Grace’s eyelashes flutter. A frown flickers across her brow.
Her eyes open, and the hazel-gold color cuts through the shadows and finds me like a spotlight.
For one second, we stare. Neither of us breathes.
Her pupils seem to dilate as her eyelids grow heavy. I see the exact moment her mind catches up with what her body did, and that I’m standing in the middle of her room like some silent, fucked-up witness.
“Jaxon?” she whispers, voice hoarse with sleep and arousal.
The sound of my name from her lips nearly undoes me. I flinch back like I’ve been punched. Her gaze sweeps down to the sheet tangled around her thighs, to the pillow still locked between her legs, and then back up to me.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I step back fast, hitting the doorframe like I can outrun the heat, the shame, the sheer wrongness of what happened. My dick is an iron bar jutting out in front of me, evidence of the effect that watching her had on me. Evidence of my depravity.
She moves under the sheet, pulling it tighter to her chest, breathing fast and unevenly, staring at me like she can’t decide whether to scream or pull me back.