Total pages in book: 175
Estimated words: 166095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 830(@200wpm)___ 664(@250wpm)___ 554(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 166095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 830(@200wpm)___ 664(@250wpm)___ 554(@300wpm)
She moans at my words, and I suspect it’s a way of her not having to reply to me. That’s all right. I know her tricks now.
“Your safe word is still casserole,” I tell her, squeezing one buttock. “And I remember rule number one.”
“Rule…number…one?” she echoes blankly, distracted. Her hands have slid to my shoulders and she leans against the wall, watching me in a daze.
I nod. “Bethiah’s rule number one. You take what you want.”
And I drop to my knees in front of her.
Sixty-One
DORA
Judging by the way Bethiah sucks in a breath, I’ve shocked her. I’m a little surprised myself, to be down on my knees in front of her in the shower. I don’t think of myself as this bold, cocksure woman, but when I think of Bethiah and Jamef, it’s like I know what I want and I’ll do anything to get it.
However, I didn’t foresee a problem with heights. On my knees, I’m not going to reach anything with my mouth. The apex of her thighs is above my forehead. “I don’t suppose you feel like squatting? Sexy squatting?”
She laughs, and all the weird tension I’ve been feeling from her disappears. “We need to get you a footstool,” she says, even as she folds up her long limbs and sits down in the shower. “The perils of loving a human.”
I hold my breath. “Love” is not a word Bethiah tosses around easily, so I’m afraid to call attention to it. I move closer to her, wrapping wet arms around her body. “This way I can kiss you, at least.”
Boldly, I brush my lips over hers. She makes a pleased sound in her throat, her hands sliding to my back, and I take that as encouragement. Lips parted, I stroke my tongue against hers, making each kiss as wet and deep (and perfect) as I possibly can. I want to devour her mouth. I want her to be utterly lost in our kisses. I want—
I pause, because something in the showers chimes. “Water conservation,” Bethiah murmurs, her gaze on my mouth. “It senses we’re not standing.”
“That’s fine. We can wash afterwards.” I cup the back of her neck and kiss her again, licking at her mouth. When she moans her approval, I slide a wet hand over her side and then up to one of her small, high breasts. Her nipple is hard, a bit tough like the plating she has over her arms and between her cleavage. But I can’t imagine our bodies are that different. Using my thumbnail, I scrape it, hard, and I’m rewarded with a hiss followed by a moan. “Too much?” I ask. “‘Casserole’ out if you need to, but I like touching you.”
In response, she holds me closer to her, her mouth hungry on mine.
Perfection. With a happy whimper, I kiss her harder, toying with her breast and teasing her nipple with my nail. I pinch it, too, and this elicits another soft sound from her. Sensitive, just as I suspected, but she just needs a little more “oomph” in that area than I do.
“I love touching you,” I confess to her, squeezing her breast. “I feel safe with you. I feel pretty with you. I feel like the luckiest person in the universe that you saved me that day at the slave market. You’ve given me so much.”
“Like a bloody nose?” she murmurs between kisses, cupping my breast and teasing my nipple far more gently than I’m touching hers.
“Like a safe place. Like someone to laugh with. Someone to kiss and hold at night when I’m scared. You’re my best friend and my lover, too,” I tell her between small, nipping kisses. It’s getting harder to concentrate given her fingers teasing my breast, but I’m determined for her to come first. “So quit telling me you don’t understand what I see in you.”
She lets out a ragged breath, her teeth scoring my lower lip. “I told Jamef I was selfish.”
“Hm?”
“That I wanted to keep you.”
I moan at that, because it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard. “I want you to keep me, too.”
“You deserve better —”
“Fuck better,” I breathe, then kiss her again. Eventually she’ll figure out that we work perfectly together. Until then, I’ll just keep convincing her. I pinch her nipple one more time and tug on it in the way I’m learning that she likes, and then I slide my fingers down her belly. “Can I touch you lower?”
She nods, her lips on mine again. It’s like she can’t get enough of kissing, and I’m happy to oblige. I tease her tongue with mine, even as I slip my hand lower, pressing between her legs to that incredibly bare, luridly arousing cleft of hers. She’s wet here, the slickness different than the water from the shower, and I let my fingers drift through the folds of her cunt, searching for her clit.