Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
“What the hell?” he protests, only just keeping his balance. His attention jumps to Primrose, but she pivots and buries her face in my chest. Her whole body is fucking trembling, and I did this. Me. I should be flayed alive for putting her through this.
My lips swipe her hair before I set her gently aside. I advance on him, head lowered, fists clenched, every civilized thought burned clean out of me.
He takes one look at my face and retreats, getting to the door before I get to him, slamming it behind him before I can raise a fist.
The sound of the lock turning in my fingers is so deafening. I turn to the sight of her, heels and pale satin underwear.
I rush at her—she rushes at me—as we collide, her hand cracks across my face with enough force to knock my head back. But it doesn’t slow us down as her hands seize my shirt and mine her waist. Our mouths fuse, and there isn’t an ounce of tenderness in this kiss.
As fury shines wet in her eyes, we maul each other. There’s no other word for this congress. Her teeth catch my lip, my hands driving into her hair, pulling on the pale silky strands to hold her immobile. She makes a broken sound against my mouth, and I eat it as grief tears through me. I fucked up. I’m fucked up.
I kiss her harder as though the thoughts will stop.
She’ll leave. Of course she will.
So I won’t stop as my arm locks around her, and I crush her to me.
“Primevère.” Her name sounds dragged from the depths, and she answers by biting my lip. Relief is not gentle. It does not wash through me. But need explodes.
“I hate you,” she moans into my mouth.
“I know.” She tastes familiar and strange all at once.
“I hate that you did this to me.”
“I know.” My voice breaks against her throat. “I know, mon coeur.” But I can’t bring myself to say I’m sorry.
“Don’t.” She shoves at me, but I’m back in an instant. I feel uncontrolled, like I’ve stepped out of myself. Like this is happening but not to me.
My hand slides under her knee and I lift it. It locks around my waist as she fucking climbs me—like the tale of the tree in the garden, the hose trapped between fit to burst. I stagger to the other side of the room, setting her down on a dresser.
Breaths ragged and hearts beating the same tune, her teeth scrape over my neck. My shirt is open, the buttons lost. Misery and need still permeates the air between us.
Her breasts press into me, her underwear nothing but tissue paper. I take the weight of them in my hands, and she makes a broken noise as I clasp them tighter than I mean to.
“This means nothing,” she gasps, closing her eyes tight as mine watch while I rasp my thumbnail across the hardened peaks.
“Nothing,” I agree, lowering my mouth to trace the rise and fall of her breath. Nothing and everything.
Her back arches. Such a sight. I press my fingers into her mouth, and she sucks hard, but she won’t look at me. So I slip my wet fingers down her chest and under the elastic between her legs.
She cries out. Bucks. Her thighs trembling around my hips.
Eyes still closed.
“Look at me,” I plead, fingers sunk deep inside. Curling. Rubbing. Making her shake.
A gray-blue flash, there and gone in an instant. I press my hand to her throat and hold her there. Add another finger and begin to fuck her with them.
“I thought I had lost you,” I whisper, putting my forehead to hers. Breathing her in, every tremble. Every withheld gasp.
“You threw me away.”
The fist around my heart tightens because she’s right. And wanting this, wanting me, isn’t the same as forgiveness.
“I’m sorry.”
“Fuck you,” she whispers, knocking my hands away as she reaches for my belt. Hot hands fumble. She pulls me out, hot and hard, then wets her lips, thirsty for this. With the grace of a queen, she settles back against the dresser, thighs wide, already coated with her pleasure. “Do it.” Like a taunt, she slides a finger between her legs. “Fuck me,” she whispers as her body offers everything. And her eyes promise me a world of pain.
48
PRIMROSE
“My first wife had gentle hands,” the old gent says as I loosen the tourniquet from his upper arm.
“Did she?” I ask absently, pressing a cotton wool over the puncture wound while also keeping an eye on the vials. A couple of days ago, a patient with dementia whipped them away and swore blind it had nothing to do with her.
“She ran off with the milkman years ago.”
“Oh, I am sorry to hear that, George.”
“Don’t be. He had a van. I only had a bicycle.”