Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 35197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
“What would you rather do? Instead of spending time in large groups of friends?”
“I don’t know,” she whispers. “Before today, I would have said I like being in my own company. Working. Browsing and reading and dreaming. Keeping my…peace. But…”
“What?”
Her shyness undoes knots in my chest I didn’t know were tying me up. “I like having you in my company. I’m being myself with you.” She studies me for a handful of seconds, no idea my fucking heart is beating out of my chest over what she just said. “Do you feel normal in big groups of friends?”
“My friends are soldiers. None of us feel normal. I think…that’s what bonds us. The abnormal is our normal.” I laugh without humor. “If my friends were here, they’d be telling me I have no business getting within ten feet of you, baby.”
“Why?”
I inhale and exhale, gripping onto my self-control for dear life. “July, you’re a blushing virgin in a tight skirt, sitting next to man who hasn’t fucked in four years. It’s a miracle I’m not pounding you into these fluffy little cushions right now.” My chest shudders up and down. “I have no idea where I’m getting the goddamn willpower.”
July
His hoarse confession sends a downward fluttering in my belly that intensifies between my legs. I’ve never been so objectified in my life and that’s supposed to damn well offend me, but I’m enveloped in heat, instead. I’m excited, my nipples budding under my sweater, my flesh sensitizing, lungs beginning to labor. As a special forces soldier, this man is surely dangerous when he chooses to be. Theo could hold me down and take what he needs so visibly, and yet, I feel as if I’ve harnessed all the power.
I like having it.
Which must be why I turn fully on the couch and kneel beside him, observing the way he tenses, his hands curling into shaking fists on his muscular thighs. He seems to be fighting the need to look at me, but he loses that battle, his pupils dilating as they zero in on my mouth.
“I told you I would help you get relief, Theo,” I say, sliding my right hand into his windblown hair, prompting his eyes to roll back in his head. “Why don’t you ask for it?”
“July, please…”
“Ask.”
“Just because you can bat your eyelashes and make me bust, doesn’t mean I don’t want to bust inside of you.” His hips tilt, as if to drive his point home, and for the first time, I let myself look at the big ridge in his jeans. “Now that we’re alone…I’m afraid if you give me an inch, I’ll take a mile.”
“You won’t do anything against my will.”
A harsh laugh escapes him. “I’m glad you’re that confident in me.”
“I am.” Wanting to prove my confidence in Theo, I follow instinct, peeling the sweater off over my head, leaving me in a pink lace bra and my skirt. “I know you’ll find a way that makes us both happy.”
“Oh God,” he groans, looking at my breasts, his lower body twisting on the couch, that bulge so prominent now, it’s a wonder it fits in his jeans. “God, it fucking hurts.”
“How do we make it stop hurting?”
His eyes are black now, his breath coming in quick pants. “You can lie down like a good girl and let me stretch that little fuck hole.”
I gasp. Out of shock over his crudeness. Out of shock that it makes me feel languid.
But I’m pushing him too hard, too far. It just feels so exhilarating to be desired like this after a lifetime of being in the background. I thought that’s what I wanted. To blend in. But…with Theo looking at me like I belong in a museum, I’m not so sure anymore. “Not yet, Theo,” I murmur. “Think of another wa—”
“No.” He surges taller on the couch, gripping the front clasp of my bra with both hands and ripping it in half, the cups falling away from my breasts as he wrestles the straps down my arms with a snarl. “Lay down, you little tease. I’m stealing that cherry. It’s mine.”
“Theo. Stop!”
His frantic movements pause, and I watch as he visibly struggles to regain his self-control, nostrils flared as they devour the sight of my straining nipples. The tops of my thighs that have been exposed in the struggle. “Oh Jesus, you need to call the police, baby. I’m not a good man right now.”
“I don’t need to call the police,” I assure him, and myself. Honestly, I’m the one that needs the most reassuring, because not only is he losing his grip on self-control…I like it. I like driving him crazy with my body, my hands, my voice. Who knew I had this inside of me?
Bringing my forehead to Theo’s, I reach down and unzip his jeans, wildly outside of my wheelhouse, but too turned on to second guess myself. “We’re going to take care of this together.” I fist his erection in my left hand, stroking it top to bottom. “Just like we planned.”