Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 97364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
He glares at me.
“You’re leaving in forty-eight hours. Don’t leave this bed now. I’ll call in sick tomorrow. You can bust the windshield of Harold’s car on your way out of town, but for now … stay.”
His face draws tight with pain and conflict.
I tug harder on his arm. “Me or Harold. Choose.”
After a few moments, he crawls back onto the mattress, caging me beneath him. I think over the past twenty-four hours he fractured my clamshell. I will never bike again. But he’s leaving and it’s like having your favorite food for the last time ever. Consequences be dammed!
Theo bends his arms, muscles flexing as his head lowers to mine. He kisses me like mad, and I kiss him back with just as much eagerness. I can’t wrap my head around Theodore Reed, music theory and composition graduate, a rather sophisticated title, fucking me all the time like a complete beast—a freight train.
The sex is nothing short of mind-blowing, but it’s far from romantic. It’s animalistic. When he reaches down and discovers I am dry like the Sahara because I’m so sore, his idea of gentlemanliness is to spit on his hand and rub it between my legs. I should be offended and repulsed by his behavior, but I’m not. Just the opposite. I’m turned on by this feral beast and within seconds of his fingers smearing spit on me, I’m actually throbbing for a release in spite of the pain. My nipples harden. My heels claim his back and my pelvis—my fractured clamshell—is ready for another round of torture.
I’ve lost the plot.
“Theo! Fuck fuck fuck!!!”
He silences me with his mouth, but I groan on every thrust. It’s ninety percent pain and ten percent pleasure. I’m giving all my focus to the pleasure. When his mouth moves to my neck, I search for something else to distract me from the pain while the pleasure grows enough to take the lead.
“The male porcupine…” I pant, my heels digging into his back even more “…drenches the … the female with urine from approximately two meters away.”
“What?” Theo grunts on a hard thrust, sweat beading along his brow and dripping to the ends of his hair that brush my face.
“I know. That’s disgusting. But if his pheromones turn her on …” The pleasure is winning. What does this mean? Does porcupine mating do it for me? “Then they mate until he’s physically exhausted …” my pelvis rocks against Theo’s. I’m so close. “But it’s not because of him … she’s the one who won’t let him stop.”
Theo stills.
“Don’t stop!” What I could barely handle minutes ago, I now need.
He shakes his head. “You’re not a porcupine.”
“Theo …” I beg.
His forehead drops to my shoulder, his labored breaths heating my skin even more. I wiggle my hips in search of some friction. Theo’s chest vibrates against mine.
“You’re laughing?”
“Dear god, woman …” He laughs with total inhibition.
I make one last attempt to press the play button on sex by gripping his firm arse, giving it an encouraging squeeze.
Nothing.
I’m pinned beneath two-hundred-plus pounds of laughing beast. It would seem the moment is lost.
“Pissing porcupines …” His cackling continues.
I stare over his shoulder at the cracks in the ceiling, chewing on the corner of my bottom lip. Well, this is rather embarrassing. At the same time, I can’t stop relishing the delightful sound of this man that I love or the feel of our bodies connected, our flesh pressed together.
He pulls out and rolls to the side, squeezing the bridge of his nose and … wiping tears from his eyes.
“Unbelievable. I bawl my eyes out over you leaving, and I thought for a second that you too might shed a few tears. Nope. I’m not worthy of your emotions, but the porcupine mating ritual has you crying.”
“Oh, man …” He sighs, catching his breath. I’ve never seen his smile stretch so far across his face. “Please let there be another life. I need a real taste of forever with you. This … this isn’t long enough.”
I know he’s going for humorous and lighthearted but his words punch right through my chest and rip my heart into a million jagged, unrepairable pieces.
Sitting up, needing gravity to assist my lungs in finding air, I pull the sheet to my chest.
“Tell me about this?” He tugs at the back of my necklace, the necklace I’ve worn every second we’ve been together.
Why now? Why try to know me when we have no time left?
I rub the ruby pendant between my finger and thumb. “It was my mum’s—I think.” I shake my head. “Oscar, my dad, had a habit of telling me the truth when it suited him or benefited me. I’m pretty sure he stole it.”
“It’s worth a lot of money, isn’t it?”
The sputter of a laugh escapes me. “I’m sure you’re probably thinking I should sell it and buy a car or a chair that reclines not folds.”