Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 82524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Another of those ghostly smiles.
I shiver and take a long drink. “No, not at all.”
“That’s a shame.” He swirls his glass, ice clinking.
“Do you dance?”
“I don’t think I ever have.”
“Come on, that can’t be true.” I say it with a smile, but that quickly fades. Looking him over, I start to think it might be. “I’m not much of a dancer either, to be honest.”
“You look good, though. When you let yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your shoulders are tense, June.”
I laugh, but he’s not kidding. I make myself relax them. “I guess I’m not used to following strange men back to their rooms.”
“That’s a good rule of thumb.” He turns his back to the city. “I’m going to make you an offer. I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m being too forward, but I’m not the kind of man who does this often, and I prefer not to waste time with uncertainty.”
“Uh…” I finish the remainder of my glass. “What kind of offer?”
“There are three bedrooms upstairs. You may have your pick. If you want, you can go up there now, brush your teeth, go to sleep, and in the morning I’ll be gone. You won’t see me again. But if you like, I’ll come with you, and we’ll share the bed together. You and me, June, just for tonight. I’ll be gone before you wake. But if I’m right—“ He steps closer and takes the glass from my unsteady fingers. He pours some of his drink into it, tips the glass to my lips, and pours it into my mouth. It’s whisky, or bourbon, or something like that, and it’s very, very good. I’m trembling with desire, excitement coursing down my skin. “If I’m right, you won’t stop thinking about me for a very, very long time.”
I bend my knees and put my glass on the floor. I’m breathing fast, shaking, wondering if I’m really doing this. Why can’t I misbehave? Why can’t I meet beautiful, handsome, scary strangers and do something stupid for once? I watched Marnie and her friends go wild, and why not me?
I take Rafe’s hand, the one holding his drink, and I raise it to my lips.
I kiss his tattooed knuckle. Then I take a sip from his glass.
The sound he makes.
My god.
It’s ecstasy. The softest grunt. Barely the whisper of a moan. Like this man’s holding himself back, a spring twisted to nearly breaking.
“Will you beg?” I ask, not sure what’s coming over me, but thinking, I can be this girl, just once, for one single night, and never, ever again. I meet his gaze and it’s hard for me to hold it. Those stormy gray eyes, filled with hate, desire, blood. “If I ask you to?”
His hand presses against the small of my back and he pulls me against him, crushing his mouth down to mine in a blistering, possessive kiss.
The only answer I need.
No, he won’t beg.
And frankly, I don’t need him to.
I kiss him back in a frenzy, moaning at the taste of his soft, stubbly lips, the power in his shoulders and his arms as he holds me, the warmth of his body, the way he dwarfs me. I’m average, around five-foot-six, not all that thin, but it’s like I’m a toy in his arms. He eats me, his tongue lapping mine, before pulling back with rage and need etched on his stone-like face.
He pours more liquor into my mouth. I gulp it down. He finishes the glass and tips it onto the floor, letting it bounce and roll away, his freed hand now lacing through my thick hair.
He bends and smells some strands before rubbing them down my face, leaving them in my mouth.
“Good girl,” he murmurs, eyes roaming my body. I’m still in my dress from earlier and now I’m aware of the low neckline, the short hemline, showing my lightly tanned skin.
I yelp, blowing out blond hair, as he lifts me up, hands gripping my ass, wrapping my legs around his middle and kissing me again.
I moan as he turns and pushes me against the glass.
His mouth is hunger and heaven. It’s hell and a promise of every mistake I never should’ve made. And I don’t care. I should be back with Marnie taking care of all my friends, and instead I’m with a beast, a monster, a creature unlike anything I’ve experienced.
But as he holds me suspended over the city, his lips sucking my neck, my chest, the tops of my breasts, it’s like the ice around him thaws. What was a statue before warms as he touches me, as I grind into his incredible body, as I kiss his perfect lips.
He lets me down. One hand wraps around my neck, pushing my chin back, as the other tears the straps off my shoulders. One rips and I moan in shock. He doesn’t seem to care. He peels me apart, and he does it slowly. I’m breathing hard as he tugs down my top, exposing one breast, and then the other.