Lost King by Piper Lennox (best self help books to read .TXT) 📕

her winter coat; it’s supposed to snow tonight. The weatherman’s calling for a light dusting. I hope it’s a full-on blizzard.

“Lot of time to kill.” She presses her face to my neck, standing on her tiptoes to reach, and inhales. “You smell like you. I missed it.”

My laugh is tangled up in a sigh. Having her abdomen right against my erection isn’t great for my lungs. “What do I smell like?”

“Lavender,” she lists, giggling while I cup her ass in my hands, “and coffee beans.” She sniffs again. “And...onions?”

“Ew.” We step apart, both of us laughing while I remove the apron and wash my hands up to my elbows. “Sounded good until you said that.”

“It is good.” She steps up behind me at the sink, face against my back. Her arms locking around me intensify that whole deliriously-happy-and-horny feeling I’ve become very well acquainted with, the last few days.

Apparently, the line between being exclusive and being a real couple is blurry as hell. And that’s totally fine by me.

I lower my head and capture her mouth in mine. Her taste gives me an instant high filled with contradictions. I’m mellowed, but my heart’s racing. All I can think about is getting her naked and propped up on that kitchen counter...but all I really want to do is hold her, just like this, and hear her talk about her day, every last detail whispered into my chest.

I’m so damn happy it hurts.

The second she’s out of her coat and shoes, I lift her against me and carry her to the living room. We tumble onto the sofa, losing clothes all the way down.

“Theo,” she gasps, when I find her already wet and push my fingers inside without warning. Her hands fly up to cover her face.

“I’ll let you get away with that for now,” I breathe across her skin, navigating my way down her neck as I find her G-spot, “but you’d better not cover your face once I’m inside you.”

“You are inside me.” It sounds like a joyous sob. “How you do this to me with just your fingers, I can’t....” Her arms cross, a blindfold over her eyes; her teeth bite into her swollen bottom lip.

I think I know what she’s getting at, because I feel that way too. Every single touch feels intimate.

“You’re coming already?” I mean it like a joke, just to tease her, but feeling her muscles tighten and knowing she’s so incredibly close gets me teetering on the edge, too, when she hasn’t touched me at all. I love when she loses control.

She pants my name again as I slide my thumb back and forth on her clit, fingers moving harder inside her. As soon as her orgasm starts, I bring my head up, use my free hand to throw her arms off her face, and kiss her. The moan she tries to give vibrates through my teeth like a hornet.

When it’s over, she presses her palms into her eyes and sniffs, laughing at the same time.

“Need a minute?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says, but starts stroking me before she’s even caught her breath.

I press my lips to her forehead and sigh a string of curses. “This is all I’ve thought about for days.”

“Me jerking you off?”

“You,” I correct, watching the way her hair flutters under my breath, “being here. With me.”

Ruby’s smile fades into something serious and searching when I lift my head and stare down at her. I don’t amend what I said, or expand on it. I meant it.

I don’t just miss her when she’s gone. I miss us.

I miss who I am when she’s with me.

And some part of her’s got to know that already. If my wild pulse, that usual half-asleep heartbeat shocked back to life, isn’t evidence enough, this is: the way I stare at her and forget anything else in this fucking world exists.

Like kitchen timers.

“The soup’s done,” she whispers with a smirk, right after I’ve put on the condom and pushed the head into her.

“It’s on simmer,” I tell her, driving in my full length. She gives a choked gasp that’s going to live in my brain for months. I bite her earlobe to hear it again. “But honestly? The whole goddamn kitchen could be on fire right now, for all I care. Nothing’s going to stop me.”

Ruby puts her hands in my hair again. It brings me so close, I have to slow my hips until I’m barely moving.

Then I notice the marks.

“Whoa.” I push her hair off her shoulder to get a better look. When I confirm the small stains on her collar are, in fact, bruises, she opens her eyes, follows my stare, and blushes. Everything halts.

“What happened?”

Ruby watches my face as I fit my thumb over each one. Yeah: these are fucking fingerprints.

Someone’s hurt her.

“Friend of mine got drunk,” she says, after a minute. Her hips rock upward, ankles locking behind my back to pull me in deeper.

I don’t let the topic go that easily. “And...what? Started a wrestling match?” I move my hand out of the way to look at them again.

They’ve faded some. Instead of being black or purple, they’re that unnatural-looking yellow that makes you sick to your stomach. Streaks of concealer come off on my thumb.

“Christ, Ruby, if they were bad enough to cover with makeup, I’m willing to bet that person shouldn’t be your ‘friend’ anymore.”

I don’t add what I really want to say: that these bruises fit my thumb size perfectly, which means it probably wasn’t a girl who left them.

“They don’t hurt.” She laughs, brow furrowed, like she finds my concern equally cute and confusing.

I can’t help but touch them again. I wish I could erase