Total pages in book: 33
Estimated words: 31279 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 156(@200wpm)___ 125(@250wpm)___ 104(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 31279 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 156(@200wpm)___ 125(@250wpm)___ 104(@300wpm)
Light switches fascinate her. Elevators make her grin. My name on the door earned a whispered “oh” like I’d shown her a constellation. Wonder looks good on her. It also confuses the hell out of me. And sets every part of me on fire.
I did not sleep last night so much as shipwreck through a series of very erotic dreams. I woke hard as fuck and aching, her taste still ghosting my tongue.
I close my eyes, letting the memory of those dreams wash over me…
Ariel, stepping into the shower with me, hair dark and slick down her spine, palms flattening against my chest as if she’s learning my heartbeat by braille. The water beads on her nipples. I track each drop with my mouth, and she arches, fingers locking in my hair, guiding me lower. My name is a purr in her throat, and my knees nearly buckle.
I lift her, and she wraps around me, the slick heat of her pussy teasing my cock. We’re clumsy and laughing until the laughter breaks on a moan as I slide inside her. She kisses me like oxygen as I press in, slowly at first, then deeper when she gasps “yes” against my mouth. Her sheath is tight and hot and devastating, and she clutches my shoulders as if she can anchor both of us to the earth while we rock. Every time I pull back, she follows, greedy, grateful, mine.
Then we’re tangled in sheets that smell like rain. She’s on her belly, sleepy and smiling, and I kiss a path down the line of her spine. She learns what makes me stutter, what makes me swear, what pulls the roughest sounds from my throat. She opens for me with a sigh, and I push in slowly and stay there, breathing with her, kissing the back of her neck while my hand laces with hers. No rush. Just the long, drugged sweetness of it, her body fluttering around me, my control fraying, both of us shaking when we finally let go...
A door slamming down the corridor shatters the fantasies swirling in my mind. I force myself to think about spreadsheets as I discreetly adjust my throbbing cock.
“Ariel, can I ask you something?” I ask once my body is under control again, crossing the office to close the door and cutting the noise to a hush.
Her blue eyes meet mine. “Of course, Everett. Anything.”
“Did you grow up in a small town? Like a really small town?” I search for a word that isn’t patronizing. “Remote. Isolated.” A monastery carved into a glacier? On Mars? A religious cult?
“Yes.” She tastes the word like she chose it with care. “Isolated. And, um, remote. I came here recently because I wanted to see more of the world. Found the lake when I was hiking and fell in love with the area.”
Which is an answer that sounds like it has a hundred unspoken words sewn into the seams. My good sense files a report labeled She’s hiding something; proceed with caution. My traitor heart tosses the report in the lake and says She’s mine: proceed with flowers and hot kisses.
She hesitates, then lifts her chin as if she’s choosing to trust me. “I was… studying,” she says. “Back home, I was on a freshwater ecology track. Like, uh, a marine biology degree but focused on lakes and inlets and watershed health. I took a year out before finishing because I didn’t want to sit in a classroom learning about ecosystems when I could actually be in one.” A tiny shrug. “Field experience is better than lectures.”
That punches directly into my chest.
Ariel turns back to the window; fingertips pressed to the glass like she can feel the weight of all that water below the city. “Most people only look at it from above. I like being in it. Watching currents. Seeing what settles at the bottom. Who’s dumping what where. Who’s hurting it without meaning to.” She glances back at me with a small, nervous smile. “I’m good at patterns. What shouldn’t be there. Changes. I can tell you if something in the water feels wrong before most people can measure it.”
I blink. “You… can feel it?”
Her brow creases. “That sounds weird, I know. I just mean I’ve spent a lot of time diving and swimming and tracking things. I know what clear water tastes like. I know what a stressed bloom looks like. I can tell when something unnatural’s leaked in, even if it’s faint.” She swallows. “It’s just… the lake talks, if you listen. Most people don’t listen.”
She flushes like she thinks she said too much.
I should probably be worried that I’ve just invited a possibly feral, definitely gorgeous, maybe-genius water witch into my insanely proprietary R&D lab.
Instead, I’m thinking: hire her.
“And you’re going back to finish that degree after your year out?” I ask, which is me trying to sound practical instead of insanely turned on by the fact that she has a brain and a purpose.