Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 131651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 658(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 658(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
“Please,” she whispers as I climb back up her body, gripping my cock. “Please, Holden.”
“Please what?”
The way she bites her lip says it all.
I notch my dick at her entrance, feeling like an animal pulling on its chain.
Something’s changed since the first few times we fucked.
It was wild then, but now—fuck, it’s breaking something soul deep. Like every time I sink down inside her and bottom out, I give away another piece of myself.
Making false promises of fantasy because I can’t answer her impossible questions.
This can’t work. Cleo Blackthorn deserves better than a jaded, older prick who’s too screwed up to give her what she needs beyond the bedroom.
She deserves youth, stability, a future with a man who hasn’t been flattened by his past and run over.
She deserves a clean slate.
She deserves a life with some art dork who can gush about pretty pictures and towering sculptures right along with her, who knows symbolism and style like the back of his scrawny tattooed hand.
She deserves someone smart and kind and emotionally available.
Not me.
Not the jealous fuck who’d love to strangle her imaginary lover just for eyeing her a second too long.
Live in the moment, you asshole. It isn’t hard.
Yeah. I thrust inside her like my whole world might end after tonight.
She moans, hips rising to meet my strokes.
Growling, I wrap my hand around the small of her back, holding her against me, the better to shake her deeper and harder, unrelenting.
She’s so small, so easy to use for an addiction that has me like a drug.
That also means it’s painfully easy to hurt her, too, and I don’t mean physically.
This girl deserves better and she’s only got me, but I’ll still make damn sure she doesn’t feel like she’s missing out while we’re sinning against common sense.
Her hand comes up to my face, lingers on my cheek, and I kiss her deeply.
I bite her mouth until she whimpers.
I let her taste herself on my lips. I hope she knows how fucking incredible it is.
“Yes, yes,” she whines. “Just like that. You feel so good. I love it when you fuck me.”
And just like that, I’m falling, crashing down and colliding with sharp, unforgiving rocks in ways I don’t dare admit.
Dangerous.
It’s like staring at the sun, blinding and sure to leave permanent damage. So the sane thing to do is avoid it, don’t look, just turn away and enjoy the warmth.
Don’t think too hard.
Just fuck her into next week.
I must be losing my mind.
We’re entering total straitjacket territory and I’m not sure my lonely family life can ever bring me back. Like I said, dangerous.
“No one’s ever felt like you,” I tell her stupidly, recklessly. She wraps her arms around my neck as I pound her faster, faster, tempo rising.
We go hard until we’re both breathing ragged, and I know I can’t hold on much longer.
“Shit, Holden!” She gasps, biting my lips.
Here it comes.
The explosive, raging pressure at the base of my spine, the urge that breaks my chain.
I slam into her again and again, holding her as I pin her down, come inside her, rutting with a wild desperation that pulls another orgasm from her bones.
Fuck. Fuck!
Later, in the shower, she clings to me while I turn her against the wall and fuck her yet again while steam billows around us.
By the time we crawl into bed again, it’s well past three a.m.
Almost dawn.
No rest for the weary or the wicked, and I’m well aware I’m both.
We don’t talk.
Every time Clee tries through her freshly fucked haze, I silence her with kisses, wrestling with more confusion than I can stand.
I hold her in the darkness as she drifts off to sweet dreams I cultivated, feeling every second slipping by, knowing I’ll never get them back.
The price of living in the moment.
Stop and breathe or blink too long, and it’s over like a fever dream.
The moment hardens into a harsh, haunting memory spinning with evil promises.
Dammit, I already know.
This woman’s a soft, silky high with a white stripe I know I’ll be chasing long after she’s gone.
19
GOLDEN SILENCE (CLEO)
Holden steps into the living room and freezes, shock painted on his face.
He squints at the window where my massive canvas has been set up, staring at the bedlam I’ve unleashed in his living room.
In my defense, it’s not my fault.
I mean, not totally.
I’ll own the tools. And the paints. And the brushes strewn around like it just rained an art store. But he doesn’t know how much work goes into a canvas this size.
As he tries to comprehend it, the look on his face cracks me up.
I’m laughing my head off, standing in the middle of my chaos. The corner of his mouth twitches.
“Don’t even. I can explain!” I say desperately.
“You’ve taken over our living room and turned it into… Fuck.”
“Well…” I put my hands on my hips as I scan the room again, my eyes narrowed as I try to see it from his perspective.