Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 86826 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86826 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
I break the kiss to watch her.
“You okay?” I ask.
She nods, fast.
“Words, sweetheart.”
“Yes.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “Yes, I’m—yes.”
I find the zipper at the back of her little dress.
I draw it down one slow inch at a time, watching her face. The dress loosens at her shoulders, and I ease the straps down with my thumbs. She shivers, and when the fabric pools at her feet she doesn’t move to cover herself, but I can see her wanting to. Her hands flutter at her sides. Her chin lifts a fraction.
Lace panties are my kryptonite and now I’m in real trouble. The good kind.
“Come here.” I take her hand and walk her backward slowly, until the breeze from the open doors moves over both of us. Until she’s standing in moonlight. I want to see her in it. I want her to know she’s worth seeing.
“You’re beautiful,” I tell her.
She laughs, a small, embarrassed laugh, ducking her head. “You don’t have to—”
“I’m not being polite.” I tip her chin back up. “Look at me. I’m not being polite.”
Whatever she sees in my face stops her breath for a second.
I unbutton my own shirt because if I let her do it, I won’t last. Even so, when it falls and her eyes track over my chest and her tongue darts out to wet her lower lip without her seeming to know she’s doing it, I have to take a slow breath through my nose.
“Your turn,” I say. “If you want.”
She steps in.
Her fingers find my belt and she fumbles with it slightly, enough that I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from helping. She gets it. She gets the button. And then her hand brushes the front of my briefs and she stills. I watch her work up the nerve, and when she finally slides her palm against me through the fabric, a small sound escapes her—surprised, reverent, like she hadn’t believed it would feel like this in her hand.
“Take them off,” I tell her. “I want you to.”
She does. Her cheeks are flaming. Her eyes don’t leave mine until she’s drawn everything down my hips, and only then does she look, and her mouth parts a little, and she says:
“Oh my god, Julian.”
I think I might lose my mind.
“Touch me,” I say. “However you want. There’s no wrong way.”
She wraps her hand around me carefully, and the contrast of that careful grip with the heat of her palm and the look on her face—half wonder, half hunger—shatters me in a way I’m not prepared for. She strokes me slowly. Watches what it does to me. Her grip firms when my eyes close. She’s learning me, fast, the way she does everything—paying attention, adjusting, getting bolder by degrees.
“That’s—” My voice has gone rough. “That’s good. That’s very good.”
“Yeah?” Small, pleased.
“Yeah.”
I let her have a minute of it. I let her see what she can do. Then I catch her wrist, because if I don’t, this ends faster than either of us wants.
“My turn,” I say.
I lift her.
She makes a startled sound—a half laugh, hands flying to my shoulders—and then her toned legs are around my waist and I’m carrying her the few steps to the bed and laying her down on it. Her hair fans across the white linen and the breeze moves the curtains around us and I have to pause, standing over her, just looking, the way I looked at her in the doorway, because I want to remember this.
She is flushed pink from her cheeks to her chest. Her thighs are pressed together. Her eyes are enormous.
“Julian.” She reaches for me. “Don’t make me wait.”
I climb onto the bed and kiss her mouth, her jaw, her throat, her salty skin, her body and mine moving in primal ways. I shimmy the lace panties down her legs and let them fall somewhere off the side of the bed. I kiss the inside of one knee, then the other, parting her thighs as I go, and she lets me, and when I finally lower my mouth to her, she makes a sound I will hear in my dreams. A sharp shocked Ah—! Her hand flies into my hair and grips, hard, like she’s trying to hold on as she levitates into euphoria.
I take my time. I learn her. When I slide a finger inside her she’s already slippery and soaking, already clenching, and the noise she makes—
“Julian, oh God—Julian—”
I look up the length of her body. Her eyes are wild. “Look at me.”
She comes apart looking at me.
Her back arches clear off the bed, her hand fists in the sheets, and she gasps my name like she didn’t know she was going to. I work her through it slowly, gently, until she’s shaking and oversensitive and reaching for me with both hands.