Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 87704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“That’s a shame,” he says. “Every girl should dance with a handsome boy at her prom.”
“Not every girl has a life like mine.”
It’s the truth, and I’m not afraid to admit it. Not now. Not after everything that’s happened. I feel tired down to the polished white of my bones.
He strokes my hair, the soft skin behind my ear, the length of my throat.
“I can make you feel good, baby doll. Make you forget.”
Our eyes meet, and his question is reflected between us. Do I want him to make me forget?
Against his tall, broad, muscular frame, I feel tiny and insubstantial, but not afraid. Not anymore.
I nod and he brushes my bottom lip with his thumb.
He eases me back onto the bed, spreading my legs gently. I’m still wearing my boots that he unzips and slides off one by one. Next, he removes my stockings, peeling them over my skin, pressing kisses to the insides of my calves, my ankles, and the arches of my feet. Then he turns his attention higher, sliding his hands up my thighs, removing my panties inch by slow inch.
With Antonio, I didn't have time to think about this part. We were in the shower, both overwhelmed with emotion that felt too raw. And in the bedroom yesterday, it built on what we’d already done.
This is so much more deliberate, intentioned, and intimate. My heart is slow and quiet while he brings my panties to his face and breathes me in. I flush hot at his hungry expression, and when he places his palms inside my thighs and eases my legs wide, the heat in my cheeks crescendos.
“Look at you.” He exhales a ragged breath. Our eyes meet, and emotion swells between us. A memory from the past of him hiding a coin in one of his closed fists and telling me to find it flashes back. He was so heartbreakingly good-looking then. I'd been shy of him, even as a five-year-old, but after a few games, I’d laughed so much, and at the end, he gave me the coin to buy sweets.
And now, Alexis is still as heartbreakingly good-looking but with a harder edge, like time has toughened him up. His smiles are not as unbidden, the laughter in his eyes tinted with a hint of cruelty. Life has worked me over, but it’s done the same to these men.
“I want to touch you,” he says. It’s not a question as such, but the way he looks at me makes it feel as though he’s asking for permission.
“Please.”
His lion's eyes flash with just a little spark of danger. His index finger finds where I’m wet, and he groans. “Baby,” he says. “How did you stay pure for so long? How did no one else come before us?”
There was no one else, I could tell him. No one who matched up to the memories I had of the Venturis and the fantasies I created from them. No men came close.
And now…
His touch is reverent, his eyes a pool of longing and fever.
“You know,” he says softly as he slides two fingers inside me, deep and testing, and I arch my spine like a cat. “There will never be a time when I won’t kill to keep you safe.”
My fingers tighten around fistfuls of the comforter, and he leans over me to kiss my clit, his eyes still devastatingly connected to mine. I grip his hair, desperate to hold him where I’m needy. His tongue slides over my clit in one long rasp, and I almost come, moaning and clutching at him as he smiles against my flesh.
“Please,” I say again, knowing how much he likes it, but mostly because I want what he can give me; dark, sinful pleasure that will tear me apart at the seams.
“It’s okay,” he tells me, sliding a hand over my belly to press down against my sternum. Fire tattoos cover his forearm, a twisted inferno like the one raging between my thighs. “It’s okay, sweet girl. There’s no rushing what I want to do to you.”
He draws back, and I pant up at him, watching as he tears off his shirt with one arm, revealing a torso that’s so ripped, it almost doesn’t look real. His nimble fingers tug the belt from their loops with a whoosh. His dark jeans are shoved over narrow hips, along with tight gray boxer briefs, until he’s standing naked before me, body covered in tattoos of fire, angels, and devils, twisted in something that at first glance seems painful, but on closer inspection is rapture.
He fists his long, thick cock roughly, slicking his palm over the wet tip.
“You see this.” His eyes focus between my thighs. “I think I need to open you with my fingers first.”
I nod because the size of him is more than a little terrifying. Not so different from Antonio, but my body is a little sore already, and with Antonio, I was more confident he’d go at my pace. Alexis is less restrained, more impetuous. He lays back on the bed beside me, stretching his arms over his head, bringing his musculature into high relief, and my mouth becomes a barren wasteland.