Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 138522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
“Abbie, damn it—”
“I’m going to fall in love with you and you’re going to break my heart. This is how this ends. I need to keep my apartment. I need a place of my own to fall when it’s over.”
He drags me closer, fingers tangling in my hair. “I’m not letting you fall anywhere but into me, woman. What part of that do you not understand? I’m not walking away.” And then he’s kissing me, a deep, curl-my-toes kiss, and I’m no longer holding back.
Sinking into his long, lean, hard perfection, he’s warm and strong and I hold on tight. I never want to let go. I have never in my life wanted anyone the way I want Gabe. I have never needed anyone the way I need Gabe. I have never wanted to kiss until I can kiss no more, but I do now. I do with Gabe.
“Say you’ll move in with me,” he demands, tearing his mouth from mine.
“Gabe,” I whisper, desperate for him to understand. “Take the time to trust me. I will give it to you.”
“I trust you.”
It’s then that I realize that denying him anything is like holding me and us ransom and that’s not what I want. That’s not what I mean to do. “I want—”
“I want,” he echoes and his mouth closes down on mine, and this time, there is demand and lust in his kiss, in his touch. He owns me right there by the bar, without ever taking off my clothes. This man claims me with his tongue, with his hand running down my back. With the emotions inside him, overflowing into me, around me. This man consumes me.
I don’t even think about holding back when he yanks my skirt up to my waist. My sex clenches and my mouth is right there with his, colliding again, tasting the hunger on his lips as my own. He grips my panties and yanks, my yelp transforming to a moan as his fingers slide along the wet seam of my body, pressing inside me. “Gabe,” I pant, gripping his tie and pulling on the knot. He has on too many clothes.
He lifts me and sets me on the counter and in a frenzy of movement, he’s just naked enough to press his cock inside me, to drive into me, thick and hard. And he does. He drives deep, nestles into the farthest part of me, and whispers by my ear, “I need you with me, Abbie.”
Need.
That word undoes me. He undoes me. I want to say as much but he’s suddenly driving into me, sensations rocketing through me, my hips lifting into his hips; fingers gripping his shirt. I suck in a breath, intending to speak but words don’t come. His thrust does. His cock drives into me and my legs wrap his hips. Over and over, he pumps, thrusts, drives, and grinds into me. Over and over, he kisses me, touches me, pleases me to the point that I can’t breathe. I can’t think. It’s intense. It’s fast. It’s insanity and the best insanity I have ever known.
I come fast, too fast, but he follows, both of us quaking with release. Both of us clinging to each other. We collapse with the ease of our orgasms, his face buried in my neck. My fingers tangled in his hair and I press my cheek to his, lips at his ear as I say, “And I need to be with you,” I confess.
He pulls back to look at me. “What does that mean?”
“It means I get it now. You need to know I trust you enough to take this risk. You need to know that before you trust me enough to confess what you believe to be your sins. So yes, Gabe. I’ll move in with you. I would be so very happy to move in with you.”
“You said—”
“That I was scared, and I am, but I get it now. You are, too. So let’s be scared together.”
He cups my face and stares down at me, searching my eyes, looking for truth and then saying, “Yes. Let’s be scared together.”
Chapter eighty-four
Gabe
Gabe
I’m not going to make my intended confession to Abbie. Not now. Not this night.
I don’t want the moment I asked her to move in with me to become about the past or even my father. For now, for this night, I want to revel in her calling my home her home. I want to revel in all the nights we will sit on the couch as we do now, waiting on a takeout order while ignoring the cold pizza my sister left behind. I know I need to talk to her about KM. I know I need to get it over with but Dexter starts chasing his tail, and the mood is light.
“What happened with Jean Claude?” Abbie dares, though I can tell she’s hesitant to break the mood.