Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Slow, patient strokes down his spine, over the ridged landscape of old violence, across the small of his back, the only patch where the skin was smooth and untouched.
Her fingers lingered like a traveler finding a clearing in a scorched forest. So gentle. So tentative and respectful, every touch drenched in clear intent not to disrupt. The sensation was so overwhelming, so impossibly tender and excruciating, that his control fractured down the center.
Slowly, she glided her hand back up his spine, the pressure shifting—firmer, possessive. Something detonated.
He spun and caught her wrist, pinning her arms to the wall like a sacrifice nailed to a cross before he knew what he was doing. The soap fell to the floor as her lips parted on a startled gasp.
Her chest heaved. Water cascaded between her wet breasts, pooling in the hollow of her collarbones, streaming over her hard nipples, before spilling down her stomach.
Those haunting green eyes looked up at him without a flicker of fear as the tension in her body went soft beneath his grip. Not limp, but passive enough that her silent surrender dissolved every rigid line of resistance, turning pliant in his hands. Willing with devastating trust.
Her chin lifted, even as her pulse visibly hammered in the hollow of her throat.
She understood his response without judgment. Without criticism. Without fear.
His hands slid from her wrist to her hands. His gaze shifted to the wet gauze on her wrist. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, and you wouldn’t,” she said with more certainty than he deserved. “I won’t hurt you either, Jack.”
The water rushed around them as the blood pounded in his ears. What if this was all he would ever be able to do?
“It’s…” He searched for the right words. “Hard for me…to give up control.”
“Then don’t.”
Her fingers entwined with his. She leaned forward as far as his grip would allow. He sucked in a breath and held it as she pressed her lips to the cigarette burn on his left shoulder. A featherlight kiss. Barely there.
“I would never hurt you,” she whispered, her breath skating lightly over his skin.
Then she kissed the mark beside it. Then the one beneath his collarbone.
“I can be gentle,” she rasped, tracing her lips over the puckered circle that, years ago, had made him pass out from pain. “I can be as patient as you need.”
Her mouth moved across his chest with brutal patience, lips parting against each ridge of tissue, each silvered furrow, each mark the chancellor carved into his flesh with the casual cruelty of a man signing letters.
She kissed the lash mark that curved beneath his ribs like a parenthesis. The jagged surgical scar. The twin burns on his sternum sat so close together they almost overlapped.
Then she lowered herself.
Slowly, her back sliding against the wet stone, her hands rotating in his grip as her body descended. His grip trailed her descent, keeping her hands against the wall and above her head as she sank to her knees before him.
Water streaming over her upturned face, forcing him to step forward and use his body as shelter.
Her gaze found the brand. Those two ruinous letters, R.A.
“They can’t hurt you anymore.” She lifted and pressed her lips to the chancellor’s initials.
The sound that ripped from his throat was not human. He hated the hypersensitivity of the flesh around the burn as much as he despised the numbness below her lips.
“They’re only scars, Jack.” She kissed the tight, glossy edges, then the center where the pain had bit deepest.
The intimacy of it, the tenderness directed at the ugliest parts of him, awakened something dark and dormant inside of him, something he never wanted to let sleep again.
He staggered closer, so she wouldn’t have to strain as her lips dragged slowly over his hips and down his thigh. His cock stiffened, thick and aching, jutting between them with a desperation that shamed and consumed him in equal measure.
She looked up at him, then closed her eyes, grazing her cheek softly against his swollen flesh. Then, she gave him the only thing no one else ever had.
Choice.
“Tell me what you want, Jack.”
His grip tightened between her fingers, and he stepped closer. She arched her back, water coursing over her shoulders as her pert nipples drew into tight, ruby points.
Words strangled in his throat.
Her lips parted. Open. Waiting for him to decide. Giving him complete control.
His head dropped forward, and his breath left him in a rush as the smooth crown of his cock dragged across her lower lip. Their locked hands tightened, squeezing.
A groan escaped him as he shifted his hips, tracing her lips with the tip again. Her lips were impossibly soft. Her breath temptingly warm.
Transferring his hold of her hands into one of his, he gripped his cock, squeezing tightly in a useless attempt to stem off his need.