Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
She fists her hands through my hair, pulling at my scar. I wince, but I don’t stop her.
“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t you dare fucking stop.”
It’s not permission.
It’s a dare, and I meet it, mouth on hers again, deeper, until she breaks the kiss with a sharp inhale and presses her forehead to mine.
She unbuttons my jeans, slides them over my hips.
My cock springs out, hard and ready.
She spreads her legs. God, no underwear. Her pussy is pink and glistening and beautiful.
And I thrust inside.
Fuck, sweet heaven.
“Henry,” she whispers, breathless.
“I know, amber. I know.” I pull out and thrust back in.
Everything I’ve ever needed seems to be inside this woman. Peace. Ecstasy. Pure unadulterated bliss.
I thrust, thrust, thrust…
“God, yes,” she grits out. “Just like that.”
She tightens around me, and when she shatters, I go along for the ride, spilling into her as if my life depends on it.
We stay there for a moment until I back away and she slides off the counter.
And I look at her.
At her beautiful face, her gorgeous eyes, her blond hair.
Peace.
That feeling that’s been so elusive for so long.
It’s finally within my grasp.
Twenty-Three
Tabitha
Wow.
Double wow.
I didn’t come here for this. Hell, I didn’t even know Henry would be here when I made the drive up into the mountains. But being with him… It’s like air.
I’ll leave tomorrow. Return to my seminar. To my life’s path.
But today I want to relish whatever this is between us.
“I need air,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “Me too. It’s beautiful here. We can go on a walk.”
I look down at my chest. “I think I’ll need to wear something other than your shirt.”
“I don’t know.” He rakes his gaze over me, his eyes burning into me. “You look pretty amazing in it.”
I give him a good-natured swat on his upper arm. “Do you think it’s warm enough for shorts? I mean, that storm last night really cooled it down.”
“Shorts are probably fine,” he says. “Or jeans or sweats. Whatever you have.”
I walk to the master bedroom where my suitcase is. I threw things in without really thinking because I thought I’d be alone here.
Crap. I didn’t even pack shorts. Just a pair of ratty jeans and the sweats I was wearing yesterday, which are still in a heap by the hearth.
Jeans it is, then, along with a simple black T-shirt. I don’t exactly own hiking boots, so my Brooks runners will have to do.
“Ready?” Henry asks when I return to the kitchen.
He looks like a gorgeous mountain man in a plaid button-down and jeans. On his feet are hiking sandals, another thing I don’t own.
“As good as it gets,” I reply.
“You look cute.”
I gesture to my feet. “I just hope these shoes are okay.”
“Sure, they’re fine. It’s not like we’re going to do a fourteener or anything.” He leads me outside the back way, where I see his truck parked.
“You could have parked in front,” I tell him. “That way I would have known you were here when I arrived.”
“And would you have come in?” he asks.
I inhale. “Honestly?”
“We’re doing honesty today.”
I bite my lip. “I don’t know. I mean, probably, with the storm coming and all. What choice would I have had?”
He doesn’t reply.
I probably would have turned around, now that I think of it. And I would have been caught in the middle of nowhere when that storm hit. It wouldn’t have been pretty, especially after the sun sank behind the mountains.
The morning is heavy, the sky still cloudy. The earth is soaked, and the pine needles are slick underfoot. The air has that post-storm taste. Kind of like wet dirt.
We don’t go far. The cabin sits on a slight rise, and a narrow trail loops around to a creek overrun with rain. I match my steps to Henry’s, staying close but not touching, our hands brushing by accident and then not by accident, and then not at all, once I nearly slip on the slick mud and he catches me.
We hold hands after that.
He’s quiet. I’m worse. Words crowd my throat and jam there.
“About…you know,” he says finally.
“I wanted it,” I finally eke out. “All of it. I don’t regret it.”
His shoulders loosen a hair. “Good.”
“But I also want to do this the way I can live with in the daylight.” I swallow. “Which is a sentence I hate as much as I mean.”
He huffs a sound that isn’t quite a laugh. “Daylight is inconvenient like that.”
We walk. Mud grabs my soles, and I tighten my grip on Henry’s hand.
“Tell me,” he says.
“About what?”
“About the guy. Lance.”
I shrug. “Nothing to tell.”
He rubs at the back of his neck with his free hand. “Would you be seeing him if…”
If…what? If I wasn’t in the time-sucking seminar? If I wasn’t in love with Henry?
Of course, he doesn’t know that.
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “He’s part of a night I’d rather forget, so even though he’s a great guy, I’m thinking no.”