Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 98755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
His eyebrows furrow as he slides a hand over my cheek and cups it, his other hand resting on my collarbone. “If it were a game, wouldn’t I have caught you already?”
“Who says I wouldn’t be the one to catch you?” I bite back.
“Who says you haven’t already?”
My heart falters. Is this a lie? Is he tricking me? It’s all riddles.
“What I do know, and what I can tell you now, is that I’ve tried to keep my distance from you for the last month. But every day, every hour, you haunt my thoughts, Shortcake. You have no idea how much you’ve poisoned me with an insatiable thirst for you. That is the truth.”
It goes without saying that it’s not all of the truth. There’s only so deep we can connect without revealing our hands or damaging our careers or my family in the process. Even if I’m realizing I’m falling for the enemy, I can’t fall so hard as to hand him anything damning about my family.
My family comes first, and it breaks me little by little to know that our ending doesn’t change. Even if I care for him. Even if I’m courageous enough to admit it. It’ll still end with me holding a gun to his head.
So irrationally, irrevocably, I want to take from him as much as I can while I can.
I lean into him, pushing aside the thoughts that weigh me down. If we can’t express ourselves through words, then all we have left is our bodies. He takes me by the waist and pulls me against him. I go willingly because I very much like his hands on me. He drags me with him to the bathroom and then pushes open the door. The moment we’re inside, he removes his beanie and coat, placing them on the hook behind the door before his hands come back to me. He fingers the clips on my overalls above my breasts, then unhooks them.
Fuck. Our hands are on one another, desperately trying to undress the other as quickly as possible.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you, Shortcake,” he whispers as he kisses down my neck. I lean into him, mirroring his words but leaving them unspoken.
I kick off my shoes and step out of my overalls. I’m left wearing only a pair of panties and a black t-shirt. We separate for a second as we both try to remove his shirt. He pulls it over his head, and I step back, admiring every flex of his muscles. He really is beautiful. I could try to sculpt him for a lifetime, and would never capture every detail and sharp ridge of his perfection.
His jeans come off next, and I lick my lips with anticipation. My body is on fire like I can’t be with him soon enough. The darkness within me pacing back and forth and needing to be touched. Needing to be seen. In the way that only he ever has.
He turns the shower on and steps inside. I remove my shirt and my panties before I follow him. He shuffles back, making room for me, and my red hair falls down my back as the warm water hits my face.
His mouth is on mine in moments, kissing, biting, sucking, and drowning as we gasp for air through the spray. Swirls of brown hit the tiles of the shower floor as the bits of clay come off me. His hands are all over me, washing away the mess, and it breathes desperation into me as I do the same to him.
I need and want him. It’s been torture to only dream of him this past month. Twisting between images of kissing him and killing him. Hating him, then fucking him. But deep down, I’m beginning to understand that this hate might be something entirely different. This hate I feel, might, in fact, be love. And that hurts more than anything else could.
His mouth finds my breast, and his tongue teasingly rolls around my nipple before he begins to suck. His hands slide down my back, past my waist and hips, to my ass, where he squeezes before lifting me up.
I wrap my legs around his waist as I look down at him, cupping his cheeks. Those beautiful blue eyes. This sinfully inappropriate man. Mine. I want him to be mine. And if I can’t have him in this lifetime, then I’ll kill him so no one else can have him, and I’ll find him in the next.
“Sometimes I think you’ll look better dead,” I whisper, a confession of my depravities. I don’t know why, but I feel like I have to give him more of me because his rejection might be the thing that helps me end this completely.
He shakes his head with an arrogant smirk as he pushes back some of my wet hair. “Then should I be flattered that you keep me alive but offended that you don’t create statues of me meeting a tragic death?”