Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 61248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 306(@200wpm)___ 245(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 306(@200wpm)___ 245(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
“What do you want, Sofia?”
“Too much. That’s what I’m afraid of. Wanting too much. Of getting hurt. And the times when that hits me, when that messes with my head, is when I’m alone and have too much time to think. I overthink, and in our case, I overthink about why this can’t possibly work. So just to be clear, there is no version of what I just told you that says go to a hotel room. If you came here for me, that’s where I want you. With me.”
He stares down at me, studying me again, several heavy beats passing before his mouth crashes over mine in a ravenous, over-too-soon kiss before he’s walking me backward. We’re barely inside, and he’s already kissing me, kicking the door shut, and we don’t bother with the light. He turns me and flattens me against the wall, his big body framing mine, the thick pulse of his erection pressing to my belly. “Leaving you and going to a hotel room defied every male part of me that wants to strip you naked and show you why we’re good together. I will not give you the time to think me out of your life. I know you don’t believe me yet, but if we were fuck buddies, I’d make you come to me, or I wouldn’t bother. But I’ve already decided I will chase you until you stop running.”
“I’m not going to run again.” I laugh a small laugh. “I hope. I’ll try.”
“I can live with that answer.”
For several seconds, we just stand there, staring at each other, the rich, warm heat of our attraction to each other a living, breathing part of the room, and I can feel the separation of our time apart fade away. His mouth crashes over mine, and I’m not holding back or talking myself out of anything but the stupidity of walking away from the Zoey brand or this man. I’m in this, all in, in a way I have never been with anything or anyone in my life.
Chapter Twenty
Ethan
Fuck her. Hold onto her. Don’t let her run.
I expected the first taste of Sofia to be temptation and distraction, someone I needed to fuck out of my system, but it was never that way with her. Instead, she’d been fine wine on my tongue and so damn fuckable and sweet, I knew I’d never get enough of her. There is something about this woman that has burned through me from the moment I met her. I tangle my fingers in her hair and deepen the kiss, my free hand sliding over her hip to cup her backside and scoop that sweet V of her body against me. She moans, and holy hell, I missed those little sounds she makes, all delicate and feminine. They tell me she’s hot for me, and I want to know how slick and wet she is right now.
Sofia is going to be my undoing, and that part of me that needs control, that needs her to claim it in her own way as well, roars to life.
My hands plant on the door on either side of her, and I force myself not to touch her anywhere, when I want every single inch of her against me. “Every action I take is because I want to be close to you. Every action you take is about running.”
Her chin lifts, and her eyes meet mine. “Not anymore.”
“You sure about that?”
“Ethan,” she murmurs, pushing off the wall, her hands on my arms, her body pressed to mine, an offering and a temptation, but there is a plea there, too.
In other words, stop pushing. And it pisses me off. It’s resistance. It’s fear. She’s letting her pain control her and us. Her hands slide under my jacket and press to my chest, her touch scorching, but I don’t touch her. I don’t want to drown truth in the fiction by way of fucking.
“Ethan,” she repeats, as a seemingly nervous breath trembles from her lips. And, damn it, I should be thinking about those lips on my cock for the very first time, sucking me deep. I should be thinking about her naked and writhing beneath me.
But I’m not.
My hands come down on her shoulders. “Tell me what I want to hear.”
Her fingers curl around my lapels. “I don’t know what all in means.”
My hand slips beneath her hair, fingers curving around her neck, pulling her mouth to mine, her elbows softening as she willingly melts against me. “For starters,” I say, my voice a soft demand, “tell me what you want right now.”
“For you to stop talking and fuck me.”
Because fucking is easier than real talk, I think, but she’s wrong. Fucking can be about trust. It can be about learning the other person in ways no other person could possibly know them. “It’s okay to be afraid, sweetheart,” I murmur. “You scare the fuck out of me, too, but I seem to like it.” My lips press to her lips, tongue licking deep and sliding long, her moan grinding through me, my cock hard enough to hurt. I step her backward against the door again, my hands framing her narrow waist. “You don’t trust me, and that is not a question.”