Series: Cobalt Empire Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 220
Estimated words: 215301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 861(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 861(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
The mattress undulates as Phoenix crashes down beside me. He tears the pillow off me and throws it at the headboard. “You’re making great strides toward murder,” he says. “Already halfway out the door.”
“Yeah, I have to resurrect myself first, Phoenix. It’s not every day your older brother tells your drummer that you’ve taken a dick in the ass.”
“On the plus side—”
“There’s a plus side?”
“I had incorrectly assumed you’d been with more than just your on-off thing up until Charlie told me. It didn’t cross my mind he was the only guy you’d ever slept with.”
I press my palms to my burning face. “So you already knew because of Charlie.”
“Yeah, but I’m glad you told me, man. You proved your brother wrong. He didn’t think you would.”
That does feel good. Uncovering my face, I perch up on my elbows.
Phoenix is turned toward me, his forearm on his bent knee, seated more like he’s a nude model posing for art students to sketch his figure. He’s so unguarded with me that he might as well be unclothed.
It makes me feel like I can ask him anything I want.
He glances at my lips. “You being inexperienced would turn me off because…?”
I stare at the sharp edges of his jaw. “Again, most guys expect me to be a sex god. So when it came to losing my virginity, it was actually terrifying, dude. I backed out…so many times.”
“With RJ?”
“No, by the time I was with him, I sort of figured sex is like a performance. It made it easier, I think, to just tell myself it wasn’t my first time. If I believed it, then he would too.” I expel a tenser breath. “I like trying new things, so I did enjoy it. I mean, I wouldn’t want to have sex with you if I didn’t.”
“Okay…” He’s thinking this over. “How many times have you actually been fucked?”
“Like…five or eight times?”
He has a shadow of a smile. “Is it five or eight?”
“Five,” I answer more honestly. “I know your count is astronomical—”
“Not astronomical,” he snaps. “Just high enough I can’t give you a number. But I can tell you that I lost my virginity in high school.”
“To the high school boyfriend?”
“No, before him. Some random guy I met at a house party. I was curious and impatient—” He cuts himself off at my laughter.
“Sorry,” I laugh more, my body jostling with the noise. “Genuinely, I am. I’m sorry. It’s just, you? Impatient? No way.”
He shoves my chest but doesn’t let me get far. He fists my white muscle shirt and pulls me closer to his mouth. The almost-kiss feels like slow-moving magma rolling across every inch of my body. His lips ghost over mine, and my veins sear with a pulsing desire. Then he releases me.
I breathe harder and fall back onto my hands. What just happened? “Was that like punishment for laughing during a serious moment?” Because I might need to laugh again.
“Or maybe I just like ruffling the Cobalt god.”
I grind away a smile. “I think you were semi-successful. Want to go for full?”
Phoenix answers by pulling his gray Henley over his head. His tattooed chest comes into glorious view.
As he chucks the shirt, I seamlessly shift and straddle his lap. The natural order of things—pushing him down, grinding against him, kissing him senseless—just vanishes out of my brain the second he frames my face with his hands.
My breath catches. My heart catapults. My smile flickers in and out. I need him to kiss me. He’s right there. My muscles flex as he draws out the moment in ways he usually doesn’t. I rasp out, “You have me where you want me now?”
“No.” His intense eyes dive deeper into mine. “Not yet.”
I put a hand to his chest, feeling the powerful thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat.
Right as I try to push his back flat to the bed, he seizes my wrist and keeps himself upright, inches from my face. That one strong movement hardens me to a painful ache, and the cavernous, needy grunt out of Phoenix lights my whole body on fire.
There is so much tension in my muscles. I instinctively grind against him to try to release it, and his other hand grips my skull. He brings our lips together in an insanely hot, sweltering kiss. Holy shit. He’s kissing me more slowly than he ever has. This change in tempo is annihilating. Bloodstream, torched.
Even as I try to quicken the kiss, his tongue works slowly and sensually against mine. I fucking tremble. I clutch the side of his neck and pry my lips off his to choke out, “I think you need to take me faster than this, dude.”
“I’m going to take you how I fucking want to take you,” Phoenix threatens against my lips. Fuck me. Like seriously, right now. His brown-blue eyes graze over my face. “That okay with you?”