Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
I frown, shrugging to break free of his hold so I can turn to look at him. “I’ve never stopped anyone from protecting me. No one wants to!”
“I do,” he states, and my heart flutters. “I’ll do anything to protect you, and I don’t know why you’d accept anything less. If I had been your boyfriend last summer, I would have never left you alone to deal with all the shit you went through. Russell didn’t stand by you for a second, and I don’t understand why you don’t see that. He abandoned you the minute things got hard, even when the reason things got hard wasn’t your fault.”
Old excuses come tumbling from my lips. “He didn’t handle things the way I would have liked, but it was hard for him, too.”
“Fuck him,” Tor says, and the quiet ferocity of the words—the depravity of saying something like that about someone who just died—cause my heart to sink.
Because I know it’s fucked up to say now, but I’ve had the same thought in the past when I was in the throes of pain, and I was there all alone—despite Russell claiming to love me.
And then he speaks again, and it’s as if he’s speaking directly to the monster buried deep inside me. “If another man ever put his hands on what’s mine, I’d fucking kill him, and I wouldn’t feel a shred of remorse.” He brushes a strand of hair away from my face tenderly, even while he says the worst things. “If I’m your man and my brother rapes you, I kill him myself. You don’t have to do it.”
I suck in a breath, and then my body responds before my rational brain can function. I throw my arms around his neck, my body pressing against his like a wild thing. My lips find his, clumsy in my desperation, but he takes over immediately. His strong arm wraps tighter around my waist as he kisses me, then his hands slide beneath my ass. He lifts me, and I gasp against his mouth as my feet leave the ground, but I trust him to carry me.
I’m not sure where we’re going, though, so I break away from his mouth long enough to look.
Toward the dock.
I see the pontoon boat bobbing gently on the water and feel a flash of reluctance because my only memory on that boat is the night I was on it with Tim.
Well, and Tor. Tor was driving the boat, but I wasn’t focused on him that night.
I’m focused on him now.
And he’s focused on me.
Cradling his face in my hands, I press another kiss to the corner of his mouth as he kicks the gate open. He shifts my weight, making sure he has a secure grip on me, then he steps onto the boat.
I hear the gate bang shut and feel the movement of the water beneath us. Tor carries me over to the bench seating, then he lays me down on my back. It’s dark enough down by the water that when I look up at the sky, I can see so many stars. My gaze catches on them as Tor unbuttons and unzips my black work pants, then drags them down my legs.
My attention snaps back to him when he slides his hand down inside my panties, cupping my pussy. I gasp softly, my head falling back, and then a whimper slips out of me as he spreads me open.
“This is mine now,” he rumbles, pressing a kiss against my mouth. “No one else touches it.”
His declaration of ownership makes my knees weak. I nod faintly, my eyes drifting closed as he teases my slit, applying just the right amount of pressure with his thumb. He sinks it inside me, and I sigh.
“These perfect fucking lips,” he murmurs, kissing, almost nibbling gently at my mouth. “I can’t get enough of them.”
My heart flutters, and my lips curve up in a smile I fail to suppress. Sometimes I drown in his depravity, but then he says something like that, and I feel lighter than air.
He brings his thumb back up to tease my clit, and his other hand hooks into the fabric of my panties so he can drag them down. I lift my ass so he can drag them past it, and he keeps fingering me while he takes the panties off.
But then he stops.
My heart is already racing, my body stimulated and needy. I’m not prepared to shift gears, so I’m a little shocked when Tor grabs the front of my shirt, using it to lift me off the bench and pull me close.
“Who’s Josh?” he murmurs.
Heart slamming forward in my chest, my eyes widen. “What? Nobody. A guy I work with.”
“He likes you.”
“He doesn’t like me,” I say adamantly. “Not like that. Just as a friend. Not even a friend—a coworker.”