Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 48446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 242(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 242(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)
When his chin quivered, I reached for him. My fingers wrapped gently around the side of his throat, my thumb smoothing over his jaw as I pulled him to me. “Lemme take a long hot shower when I get to your place, okay? Then once I’m clean, I can get in your bed.”
He blinked repeatedly, and I could tell he was on the verge of tears.
“Since when do you cry for me?” I teased him, trying to jolt him out of his mood.
“Since I never thought I’d see you again.”
“That’ll never happen,” I promised him. “And when I finally find a home, maybe you would even consider coming to see me.”
“Or maybe you could just stay here.”
“Cy, don’t—”
“Stop,” he barked at me, hands on my face, drawing me forward, leaning in at the same time so that we met in a rough kiss, hard and furious, the action filled with how much he’d missed me.
I felt the same. Whenever we were separated, I ached for him.
His lips parted instantly for my tongue, and I reacquainted myself with his hot mouth, savoring his presence, intoxicated with him that fast. He crawled over the console between us and was in my lap, all six feet one of him, twisting, straddling my hips, shoving his hard groin into my abdomen. I was grinding my own painful erection along his crease as his breath got choppy, our hands fumbling, tongues tangling, followed by my long, deep moan and the answering tightness in him. It felt so good the way he clutched at me, bit my bottom lip, and pressed his chest to mine.
“Missed you,” he choked out. “Always.”
I reached up, my hands on his face leaning him back, and gazed at him. “Me too. Take me home before I fuck you in the car.”
His eyes were slits of need, and when I lifted up, a low, sexy sound, a purring growl, rose out of him. “The car sounds fine.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Does it, Dr. Benning?” I teased him, enunciating his title. “Would we make the society page?”
“Leave it to you to be the one thinking of my career at a time like this.”
I laughed, grabbing him tight, crushing him to me and letting out a deep breath.
“How long can you stay?”
“Couple days,” I said, closing my eyes, the warmth of his body, how hard he was hugging me back, and his breath down the side of my neck making me want to remain there and never move. “God, I love holdin’ you.”
He didn’t say anything, just squeezed me back.
He was quiet on the ride to his place in Potrero Hill. I loved his house and his sleepy neighborhood, which was far enough from the hustle and bustle of downtown San Francisco but still close to the hospital where he worked. Over the past three years, I always enjoyed my visits, sporadic though they were.
As we sat in silence, the only sound coming from the rain hitting the windshield, I reached for his hand. “Don’t you wanna talk to me none?” I laced our fingers, resting our clasped hands on my thigh.
“No, Web,” he said, his voice gravelly. “I want to keep you locked in my bedroom for the rest of your life, that’s what I want.”
I chuckled. “You’d get sick of me right quick if I was here all the time.”
He shook his head as he turned onto his street. “That’s the part you don’t get. I could never tire of you.”
I scoffed. “You don’t know from—who’s that in your driveway?”
He frowned, and as he turned in, hitting the electric garage-door opener, the light went on in the monster SUV parked there. A woman got out of the driver’s side, and the two back doors were thrown open. Three kids got out, from biggest to smallest, and all dashed into the garage to escape the rain as the door slowly rose. Cy pulled in and parked, and we both got out as the woman came toward him.
“Cy,” she gasped, and I could tell two things just from glancing at her: first, she’d been crying, and second, she was Cy’s sister. Same delicate, fragile, sharply cut features; thick, wavy chestnut hair; bottomless gold-brown eyes fringed in long, curling lashes; and golden skin. Because she looked like him, I felt that immediate kinship.
She sucked in her breath when she saw me. “Oh. I didn’t know you had comp—”
“Are you a cowboy?” the smallest boy asked me, head tilted all the way back as he looked up at me.
I knelt on one knee in front of him, tipping my hat back, taking in the red felt one he was wearing, the boots he had on along with his flannel pajamas, and the rope, made out of heavy yarn, he was carrying. “I am. And I see you are as well.”