Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 134598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Reaching up slowly, she put her right hand against his cheek. “You’re a lovely man.”
“Lovely, huh? What about handsome? Sexy? Smart?”
“Oh yes. Those things too.”
“And you’re beautiful. Sweet. So intelligent. With the most beautiful lips that I cannot wait to kiss.”
Her breath caught. Suddenly, she wanted that really badly.
“I told you I’m no good at kissing. And I’ve never done anything else.” Which is part of the reason she was so hesitant. What if she didn’t like any of it? Sure, she’d made herself come. You couldn’t read the books she did and not invest in some toys.
But that was different from having someone else touch her.
“I don’t believe for a second that you’re bad at kissing. From what you told me, it sounds like he was.”
True.
“What if you kissed me instead of me kissing you?” he asked.
“I could be in charge?” That was surprising.
“Yep. I’ll just sit here and take it.”
Was he laughing at her? His lips had curled up.
“Am I being cute again?” she asked suspiciously.
“You’re always cute. But yes.”
Cate huffed out a breath. Then she experimented with putting her left hand on his shoulder. The other stayed on his cheek.
“You’ll tell me if I do it wrong?” she asked.
The idea of messing this up filled her with dread.
“You won’t mess it up.”
“I could,” she replied.
“All right, I will tell you. But there’s honestly nothing you could do except bite me too hard.”
“There’s biting involved?” She definitely needed to do some more research first. There was no biting in that other kiss. She drew back. “I’m not sure I can bite. I’m sorry. Obviously, this isn’t going to work. I don’t know what I was thinking. I apologize. This is all my fault and now I’ve wasted your time—”
“Whoa, okay.” He placed a finger over her mouth, stopping her from talking anymore. “Just take a breath. In. Then out. All right. Again. In. Then out. That’s it. You went from zero to a hundred, didn’t you?”
“Zero to a hundred?”
“Why did you jump straight into thinking that I wouldn’t want you if you couldn’t bite me?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know.”
He studied her for a long moment. “The reason I mentioned biting is because some people might like the sensation of someone lightly nipping or tugging on their lip and tongue. Others might not. It’s about learning what you and your partner like. And the only way to do that is to try. If you don’t like something, we don’t need to do it again. Or we work out if you’d like it with some practice.”
“Oh.”
“This won’t work if you try to run away at every hurdle.”
Even she could tell that he was scolding her. Lightly, but the chastisement was there.
Her gaze dropped, her heart filling with sadness. “Sorry.”
Putting a finger under her chin, he raised her face up. She kept her gaze on his nose, unable to look into his eyes. “No need to say sorry. We just need to work on you not assuming everything is your fault or something you need to apologize for.”
“I do that a lot.”
“Yes, you do.” He ran his thumb over her lip and she trembled.
She liked that a lot.
“So do you want to try kissing me?”
Cate nodded. She did want to try that.
“That’s my brave girl. Whenever you’re ready.”
She balanced herself with her hands on his shoulders, then leaned in and brushed her lips against his.
Okay. That was nice. Nothing mind-blowing. But it was sweet. She decided to do it again. Her lips tingled.
But she wanted more.
You have to open your mouth.
Yes. But she wasn’t sure about that part. It hadn’t been that nice last time.
Plus, she wasn’t exactly sure what to do.
A small grunt of exasperation escaped her as she tried again.
“What do you want, baby?” he whispered.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I want more. I want to try putting my tongue into your mouth, but I’m unsure how to do that.”
“I’m going to help guide you, all right? If you need to pull away, I’ll let you go immediately.”
“All right.”
He placed his hand on the back of her head and drew her down to his mouth. He stopped, though, when she was a few inches shy of his lips.
“Ethan,” she groaned. Arousal was making her antsy. She needed more. She needed him.
“Shh. I just wanted to tell you that you’re so beautiful. I was so scared today, thinking that something could happen to you.”
She relaxed. “I was concerned when he kept crashing into us. But I wasn’t scared.”
“You weren’t?”
“I knew you’d keep me safe.”
He groaned. “Fuck, baby. You don’t know what your faith in me does to me.”
“Does it make you feel good?” she asked.
“So fucking good. It makes me hot. It makes me want to kiss you until we both forget where one of us starts and the other ends. It makes me want to claim you as mine.”