Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 73665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
“I don’t know.” She gives a tiny shrug. “Women just don’t smell like that. Every person is unique. It’s your one-of-a-kind eau de man. It’s like an invisible call straight to the lady animal in me. My lady wolf and my lady devil, and the lady who is nothing but a lady. We all love the way your natural scents mix with what you use in the shower, your hand soap, your clothes, your shoes, your cologne.”
“Shoes?”
“Your feet are divine.” I happen to be sitting with my back against the headboard, in only my boxers, my legs stretched out in front of me. My feet are extra visible. “I’m saying that with no great love of feet. Not that I don’t love them. They’re very useful. I just don’t love love them.”
“I think the scent you’re looking for is bergamot. I’ve always enjoyed it. It’s a little spicy with mostly citrus notes.”
“Yes! Bergamot! That’s it!” she exclaims.
I wait a few minutes while we both savor the tea before I broach the next uncomfortable topic. I don’t know if I should spend the night. That might be too much too soon, and I don’t want to leave here without assuring myself that Bellatrix is absolutely okay.
“Is this bad timing? You said you hadn’t told your parents that you’d broken up with your ex.” That’s also code for, and now you have to tell them that you’re seeing your best friend’s dad. Heavily implied: age gap. Big. Gappy. Age gap.
She gets up and sets her empty mug on the opposite nightstand, then arranges herself in my lap so her knees are on either side of my waist and her hands are on my shoulders. She’s hovering over my dick with nothing on under that robe.
I try very hard not to groan.
Or slam her down on top of my raging hard cock for another round of being inside her sweet, tight pussy.
She gets all intense. But for an entirely different reason. I think. “Everyone says timing is everything, and maybe it is, but it could be the right time even if it doesn’t seem like it.” She kisses my cheek, and I turn and inhale the fresh strawberry aroma of her hair. “Who are we to tell the universe that it doesn’t know what it’s doing? The universe makes the sun. I barely understand how sundial or solar power works, and it’s just up there, megawatt-ing away and providing all life. And that’s just one star. It’s hard not to care what people think, but the people who love us will get it. Mika already gets it.”
I sweep the hair off her neck, planting little kisses there. She gasps, the sound reverberating through me. I’ll remember this night for the rest of my life.
“I can imagine she’ll send a thousand texts asking me if we’ve gone out on a proper date yet, but that’s not why I’ll ask you if you want to go,” I say.
“She’ll text me a million times asking me the same thing, and it’s not why I’ll say yes when you ask.”
“I’m committed to this in whatever way you want,” I say to her.
She strokes my cheek, her fingers so soft and her breath minty as she leans in close. “I’m like anglerfish-level committed.”
I quirk a brow. “Don’t they absorb each other when they find a mate?”
She giggles. “I can’t believe you know that. No one knows that. I don’t understand how it even works, but they become some kind of inseparable.” She jerks back, searching my face and panicking. “And that’s way too much. Maybe just an anglerfish spots another anglerfish from a distance and knows that one day, they will be inseparable.”
“It’s not too much.” I don’t want her to pull back. I don’t want her to go. I’d like to freeze time and stay like this forever, or at least for the next five minutes, completely uninterrupted.
“I like that you get me,” she admits shyly. “I like that I feel safe with you. I like that you’re a good, honorable man who isn’t afraid to admit he’s made some mistakes and is willing to learn from them. I like that you care about everyone else, even people like Geneiva, who is a complete stranger. Is she going to be okay?”
This is the last thing I want to talk about right now, but it’s important too. “She’s going to be fine. I talked to her dad, and we had a long conversation. I don’t know if he was very happy about it, but in the end, I think he saw that, from one father to another, making your daughter very unhappy for the sake of appearances isn’t a very loving thing to do.”
“Are you still moving ahead with the agreement?” Bellatrix asks.
“Yes. I’ll have a bunch of hotels in Europe, and he’ll have the cash.”