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Chapter Eighteen

HALF OF NORA’S BODY is on top of me, lying across my chest. Her chin is resting just below my breastbone, and her fingers play in my chest hair. She swirls her index finger around, and I watch her in silence. The air conditioner hums in the background, and my mind is replaying the last few minutes over and over and over. Her cheeks are still tinted a blooming pink, and she looks refreshingly, painfully beautiful. She’s taken her shirt off and is wearing nothing but those beautiful eyes, those pouty lips, and that dandelion tattoo midway up her back.

“You know, I’ve never had a lover be so gentle with me,” Nora says, her eyes not meeting mine. She stares at my chest, and her fingers continue to caress my skin.

You know, I’ve never had anyone call me a lover,I want to say, but decide against it. “Is that a good thing?” I cringe, thinking of all the whips and chains and things people seem to be into nowadays. Am I too gentle? Dakota sure thinks so, not that I want to think any more into that . . .

Nora beams. “Yes. A very good thing.” Her voice changes to a whisper, even though we’re alone. “Though”—she regards me thoughtfully—“sometimes I’ll want you to be rough.”

I’m surprised by the way her words make me feel and also ecstatic that she wants to do this again. My body, though still recovering, aches to be inside her again. Just how rough is she talking here? I’m intrigued by the wide world of sex that I’m unfamiliar with, but I don’t know if my mind can separate being rough from hurting her. I know there’s this whole gray space between rough sex and plain old sex, but just where does her arrow rest on the spectrum?

“How rough?” I ask.

One of her hands moves over mine, and she guides it to her hair. Wrapping our fingers around a chunk of dark strands, she yanks on it. My cock throbs.

“Rough enough.” She smiles delightfully and mischievously. She rubs herself against me. It’s like her body is completely in tune with mine. “Does that sound like something you would like?” Nora’s voice is husky. She tilts her head down to my chest and swipes her tongue across my hardened nipple. Her teeth graze it, and she flicks at it with her tongue. The sensation shoots straight to my groin. No one has ever touched me there, let alone used their mouth on me. My heart is racing—more than usual—and I’m both excited and a little afraid. Not because I don’t want this, but because it’s all so new to me. I heard someone say once that there was a sweet spot between thrill and fear, and it’s a spot I think I’ve jumped right into the middle of.

I nod in delayed response.

She presses her lips against my chest. She makes a humming sound in the back of her throat. “I love your body.”

She moves her hands up to my neck. Her fingers skim over my clammy skin, and my cheeks heat under her compliment. Her hands span my shoulders and back down my chest. It takes everything in me not to writhe under her.

“You’re one of those people who don’t have to work out to have an amazing body, aren’t you?” Nora gives me a conspiracy-filled smile. “Actually, don’t answer that. I want to imagine that you work out twice a day to look like this.” Her fingers leave my chest and travel down my stomach. Her long nails drag down the ridges of muscle.

I move my hand to her bare behind. “I love your body.” I grab a handful of her thick ass, and she purrs. Literally purrs from my touch, and I want to hear that sound again. “You have the kind of body that men have bowed to since the history of time.” I think back to all the ancient beauties and the spells they cast on men. Despite my love of all things history, in this moment, naked beside her, I can’t think of a single one of their names.

“Hardly.” She snorts. “I love my body,” she says with certainty, “but it took me a long-ass time to get there. My teenage years were awful, with every girl on TV a size zero and airbrushed to death. Even the girls at my school—I went to a private school, and they were all these tiny little blondes with rich daddies. From magazines to movies to the hallways, there were no girls who looked like me.”

This part of her, the insecure teenager, tugs at my heartstrings. Having been with Dakota, who is darker skinned than Nora, I remember these problems coming up. If society tells us that all


Tags: Anna Todd Landon Gibson Romance