Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
His hands roved her body as he bent to lick water from her throat, going lower still to take the tip of her breast in his mouth. Her pleasure spiked all over again as he made love to her with his lips, his tongue, then his fingers between her legs. He stayed there only a moment, as if he were teasing her, but then his hands were everywhere, kneading her back, sliding down her spine, cupping her bottom, pressing their bodies together as he once again plundered her lips.
She rubbed against him, wanting him again, the taste of him still filling her mouth. Then he slipped a hand between them and went straight to her core. He surrounded her, filled her, his fingers inside her, then sliding back out to find the hard nub of her desire. She fell apart in his arms, waves of erotic pleasure swamping her body, her mind.
Her heart.
She gave herself up to the sensations, reveled in them, savored them. Gloried in him.
Her release was so wild she would have fallen if he hadn’t been holding her.
It was how she’d felt at twenty-one, as if she couldn’t stand on her own without him.
She clung to him, kissed him with the passion she’d banked all these years. With the crazy need she’d held at bay, telling herself she didn’t feel it anymore.
But, oh God, how she felt it all now.
He pulled back, cupping her face for one last beautiful kiss, then running his hands through her hair. “I’ve so missed feeling you come apart in my arms.”
The words made her knees buckle.
Yet she couldn’t say them back, couldn’t tell him how much she’d missed all the emotions he brought up, all the sensations his touch elicited, the roar of release, the languor of satisfaction.
Still trapped in the thrill of his arms, she managed to say, “I really do have a meeting. I’ve got to dry my hair and redo my makeup.”
He smiled with a fondness that only people who have been together for years could feel. But they’d had only a few months together back then. And only a few days now. And as badly as she wanted to stay right where she was, to send Naomi out for a packet of condoms, to do this all day long on the sofa, on the conference table, on her desk, and back to the shower again, she couldn’t.
Finally, he let her step out and grab a towel. She handed him one too. As she dried off, she watched him towel his hair. He was so beautiful, so strong, so perfect. His body was like something a master had sculpted.
She covered her head with the towel, blotting out the sight of him as she squished the moisture from her hair. Her robe hung on the back of the door, and she pulled it on, began brushing her hair.
When he was dry, he stepped out of the shower, and his body heat filled the too-small room, turning it hotter even than the steam.
“I’ll get our clothes.” His voice was thick with emotion about what they’d done.
She let him go, and only then realized she’d barely taken a breath. Gulping in air, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was a tousled wet mess, her makeup gone except for mascara smudges beneath her eyes.
What had she done?
He was like a lightning strike.
With him outside the bathroom and her inside it, all the potential pain she’d opened herself up to washed over her. It could be even worse than the hurt she’d suffered before. Because kissing him, tasting him, taking him—it was all like poking a wound that had never healed completely. Even as she’d told herself that she was fine, that she’d moved on, that she had her life in order, had attained her dreams, she could feel it all draining away with the possibility that her heart would break all over again.
It had been half an hour of glory. After he’d ghosted her for fifteen years. She’d discovered nothing during all that time that made her believe love between her and Ransom could actually work.
Not Dane’s love for Cammie. Not all the love she saw between the Mavericks. Love wasn’t the problem. She and Ransom were. And what did thirty minutes of the most amazing lovemaking that was even better than she remembered, better than her body had ever felt—what did those thirty minutes mean stacked against fifteen years?
The last few days had been great. He’d listened to all her needs and come up with a fabulous plan. He’d done an amazing job on the wedding.
But truly, how was anything different now? All this time, he hadn’t even understood that he’d pretty-womaned her, that he’d ignored her dreams, that he’d made her less than. How could she know for sure that he understood now?