Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“You’re saying that like it’s even a fucking option not to be,” he said, snorting at me before ending the call.
I was half-tempted to give that little shit one of the beatings he’d missed out on in school. It would be character building for him.
But, objectively, I just knew the tension in me had nothing to do with him.
It was about Claire.
And everything I was starting to want with her.
Without knowing exactly how to broach it without making her feel trapped, or like she owed me something in return for a roof over her and her son’s head.
“Fuck,” I hissed, climbing off the bed, and going to wash up and change before making my way downstairs.
I didn’t want to bother Claire, so I’d jotted a quick note on the island, saying I had a meeting, and I hoped to be back to cook dinner, but I would text her if I was going to be late.
Then I set the alarm.
And made my way to the docks.
Totally oblivious to what was about to go down.
CHAPTER NINE
Claire
I felt oddly inside my body and somehow not fully in my own mind as I walked on bare feet, wrapped up in Aurelio’s bedding, across the hall and into my room, closing, then leaning against the wall.
I could feel the traces of him all over me.
The scent of him on my skin, the slight beard burn over my chest, my breasts, and down my belly, the phantom sensation of his fingers inside of me, the taste of him on my tongue.
But my mind hadn’t quite caught up to my body.
It all came back, little by little, leaving my body suddenly feeling too heavy, making me slide down the door until I was sitting on the floor, knees to chest, trying to figure out how the hell things had gotten so out of control so fast.
I mean, after the kiss, it seemed like we both decided it was… if not a mistake, then just… not a good idea.
We’d both been into it at the moment. But once we got some distance, it was clear we’d both put some thought into it, and decided not to go there again. Hence how we’d been kind of tip-toeing around each other since, without becoming distant or unfriendly.
It had just been… one of those days.
Where I was tired and overstimulated. And Judah just kept demanding more and more from me when I felt I had little left to give.
I blamed my sleeplessness the night before. My dreams flip-flopping between horrific memories with Warren to steamy fantasies with Aurelio at a breakneck pace that had me tossing and turning and giving up before the sun was even up in the sky.
It wasn’t like me to be so out of sorts that Judah could sense it. But as I tried to get him to nap, it was clear that my stress was practically oozing out of my pores. I’d put him in the crib only eighty-percent asleep, hoping he would just settle, and I could take a shower to pull myself back together.
Then the cry.
And Aurelio’s intervention. Like he just knew how close to the edge I was, and was happy to step in and push me away from it.
It had been silent on the monitor for a while, so I figured it would be safe to run across the hall in my towel.
Until I plowed right into the man.
Then things… had progressed quickly.
I hadn’t been prepared for the way my own desire and pleasure had completely overtaken me, silencing any thoughts other than more more more.
And Aurelio was all too happy to keep giving, his lips and tongue and fingers, knowing exactly what I wanted and when, never letting the need ebb, just driving me right to and through an orgasm that had me crying out, had me clutching the sheets, and remembering that this, this was what intimacy was supposed to be like between a man and a woman.
It was only after that when I seemed to remember that it wasn’t just about me, that things had to be reciprocated. And I didn’t even remember that on my own. It was Aurelio reaching into his pants that had me remembering that I had to please him too.
Until… he just brushed me away, reaching to free himself, then stroking his cock as he continued to work me with his fingers. Not seeming the least bit bothered that I wasn’t touching him in turn.
I couldn’t seem to stop myself from watching, either. Him touching me, sure. But even more so, him touching himself. His long, thick cock in his strong hand, the way the muscles in his arm and chest tightened as he got closer and closer, how his eyes burned and a muscle ticked in his jaw.
Then, after my orgasm crashed through me again, I got to see the way his head fell back, and his breathing got tense as his own orgasm worked its way through him.