Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
For once, I don’t feel broken.
For once, I just feel loved.
We spend the next hour on the couch, drifting in and out of conversation, occasionally dozing in the hush of the house. When Liam’s stomach growls again, he laughs and says, “I should feed you real food. Or at least more food.” We migrate to the kitchen, where the countertop is still scattered with the debris of breakfast—jam jars, knives, a mostly-eaten croissant.
He offers to make a frittata. I say I’m fine with toast, but he shakes his head. “No sweetheart. I wore you out last night, and you need the calories.”
I flush, weirdly pleased, and watch as he whips eggs with one hand, his apron tied around his waist, the PICKLE LOVER logo now streaked with a bit of flour. The light is getting whiter, more ordinary, but the kitchen feels like it belongs to some other world—a world where everything is simple and every worry can be cooked away.
He slides the frittata into the oven and leans on the counter opposite me. His face is unreadable for a moment. Then he asks, “Are you happy here, Simone?”
It’s the sort of question I could have fun with, but instead I tell the truth: “I’m happy everywhere with you.”
He stares, just long enough that I wonder if I’ve gone too far. But then he nods, like he expected the answer all along.
“I get restless,” he says. “This place, my job, sometimes I want to burn it all down and start over.”
I slide onto the barstool, careful to keep the shirt pulled over my lap. “Why don’t you?”
He snorts, half amused. “I have tenure. And a mortgage.” He flicks his eyes toward the window. “Sometimes I think about quitting. Taking a year off. Going somewhere nobody cares who I am. Writing the way I used to before I had to publish or perish.”
He sounds almost shy, which is wild coming from a man who just last night was fucking me so hard I almost passed out.
“But I thought you were tenured already. They’re not going to fire you.”
He shoots me a sideways grin.
“Yeah, that’s true, but there’s my professional reputation to keep up. Plus, I want to write. It’s who I am, and I want to find somewhere isolated to do it so I can concentrate.”
I nod slowly.
“Where would you go?” I ask, letting my chin fall into my palm, giving him the full dream-girl gaze.
He thinks for a moment. “Maine, maybe. A tiny house on the coast. Or a cabin up north, just far enough from the city to matter.” He glances at me. “Would you visit?”
I laugh. “You think I’d let you hide from me? I’d be on your doorstep every morning demanding coffee.”
His jaw ticks, and the look he gives me is almost predatory. “You’d be welcome. If you agreed to cook, clean, and keep me warm at night.”
“Is this your way of asking if I’d be your trad wife?”
He shakes his head, then steps around the counter, standing over me. “No. It’s my way of asking if you’d be my sex slave.”
My cheeks go hot. The words punch a bolt of need through my chest, straight to the spot between my legs.
“You’re not serious,” I say, but my voice betrays me.
He doesn’t laugh. He bends, cups my face, and kisses me hard, tongue sweeping deep until I’m clutching the counter for balance.
He pulls away just far enough to whisper, “I’m completely serious.”
There’s no warning before he yanks the stool closer to the counter, spreading my thighs with his knee. He tears open the last two buttons on the shirt so it falls away from my body, leaving me bare in the light, nipples already hard. I want to protest—he never even asked, and there are windows everywhere—but the way he looks at me shuts down my whole nervous system except for the part that wants to be ruined.
He doesn’t wait. He bends, sucking one nipple into his mouth, teeth grazing just enough to make me arch into him. His hands are everywhere—palming my ass, squeezing my thighs, sliding up my back. The scent of coffee and eggs and my own sweat makes my head swim.
He lifts me onto the counter, cold marble against my ass, and drops to his knees. He looks up, meeting my eyes, and says, “Open.”
I do, of course I do.
His tongue is even hotter than last night, more insistent, like he’s been too long without a taste of my pussy. I grip the edge of the counter as he sucks my clit, fingers spreading me wide. I’m soaked, embarrassment never even crossing my mind. The idea that anyone could see—any neighbor, any passing dog-walker—only makes it hotter.
I come so fast I almost don’t realize it’s happening. My vision goes white, and I let out a sound that would get me evicted in most apartment complexes.