Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 72892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“You don’t have to.” I slide closer to him so I can sit in his lap. “You knew who I was when Daxton collapsed, and at the hospital the next day when you said lamb.”
“I saw the way you reacted to that.” He kisses the side of my neck. “I knew that you figured out our connection then.”
I nod. “I did. It almost knocked me off my feet.”
“You ran,” he reminds me. “You took off out of that cafeteria without a glance back.”
I chuckle. “I had to. I needed to breathe. I had to think.”
He reaches for my chin to tilt my head up until our eyes meet again. “Tell me why you ran out of the club after you blew me, Eloise. I wanted more, but you were gone before I could beg you to stay.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Gaines
That question has been a thorn in my side, and my heart, for more than two years.
She bolted when I wanted to fuck her. I wanted more than that, though. I wanted her real name and her phone number. I wanted to meet her back in that club every night after that, but she left.
Her hand drops to the center of her chest. “I thought I was going to pass out.”
The doctor in me takes over. “That means what? What were you feeling?”
“Amazing.” She smiles. “I came harder on your hand than I ever had with any guy in any way.”
I want to take pride in that, but my concern for her is overshadowing everything else.
“When you came down my throat, I was in awe.” She rubs the side of her face. “The sensation, the taste, and those sounds you made… I felt lightheaded. My heart was pounding so hard it was drowning out everything. It must have been an adrenaline rush. I hadn’t experienced anything like that before.”
That makes sense.
“I ran because I couldn’t breathe.” She smiles. “I felt overwhelmed by it all, and I think, and please don’t laugh, but I felt like I was falling in love with you.”
I sit stone faced because hearing that now, even if it’s in the context of a fond recollection from two years ago, hits me hard.
I want her to say that to me again, and mean it now.
“I was too young to be there,” she confesses. “I was twenty. Almost twenty-one but I was too young to know what was in store for me. I’m so grateful that you were the man who took me to that room.”
“I’m grateful too.”
She cups a hand over my cheek. “That night taught me that sex can be this incredible experience. I learned to demand more from my lovers. I learned to ask for what I really wanted.”
I drop my gaze to the bed. I can’t hear this. I don’t want to know about her other lovers or how they got her off. I sure as fuck don’t want to hear how I played a hand in that. Literally played a hand because I fucked her tight pussy with my fingers until she came.
“Whose turn is it now?” she asks as if I can go on with this “game.”
I feel as though I was pushed into a confessional booth just as I was the one time my grandmother dragged me to church with her. I was ten, maybe twelve, and my sins at the time amounted to throwing a rock at a squirrel.
My aim was shit. The squirrel was fine.
She shifts in my lap to straddle me, resting her hands on my shoulders.
Her gaze sears into me. I feel so damn exposed. It’s almost as if she’s looking straight into my soul.
If she keeps that up she’s going to realize I’m in love with her.
“His voice was like a wave that met her at dawn,” she whispers, her fingers tangling in my hair on the back of my head.
I finish the last line of the Garin poem she’s quoting, “It soothed her very soul until she took her last breath, and then it stayed with her beyond.”
With more tenderness than I’ve ever experienced, Eloise kisses me in a way that will stay with me forever.
“Are we eating pizza for breakfast?” Eloise laughs as she enters my kitchen. “How did you get pizza delivery at six in the morning?”
I look her over. She back in my white button-down shirt and since only one button between her breasts is holding it place, I catch a glimpse of her panties underneath.
I’m dressed for my day in a shirt that matches the one she’s wearing, along with navy blue pants and a striped blue tie.
“I saved the owner’s life last year.”
It’s the truth, but that’s not only reason I was able to get a ham and pineapple pie delivered this early. The owner of my favorite pizza place starts his day early so that anyone who wants a slice of pizza with scrambled eggs and bacon on it, and a coffee knows where they can go. The food is free in exchange for a donation to the food pantry across the street from his business.