WHAT THE WHAT!? If you’re tired of being TORTURED by the wait for TIME, I have a very exciting announcement… You can grab TIME two weeks early, exclusively on Apple Books! It will release on all other platforms as scheduled on April 15th. Also, as a bonus I’m sharing an exclusive excerpt from TIME from Mona’s point of view.
ENJOY THE TORTURE ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
** MONA **
“We have twenty minutes left, before I have to leave,” he said, the words rough. His palm came to my knee and my body jolted at the benign touch. A small smile tugged his mouth to one side, his delicious dimple making an appearance, and his voice was low and rumbly as he asked, “Do you want me to touch you?”
“Touch me?” I squeaked, clearly incapable of brain function higher than a parrot. Forced to exhale because my chest felt like it might burst, not a half-second later I was gulping air again.
“Yeah.” His hand slid higher on my leg, sending hot spikes of twisting tension straight to my center, and he leaned closer, rising slightly above me, filling my vision, his warm palm shifting to the inside of my upper thigh.
My feet did something weird, arching and pointing uncontrollably almost like they’d been tickled, the muscles of my legs and stomach flexing, and I sucked in an involuntary breath just as his large hand stopped at my hip, his thumb drawing a firm line over my thin cotton pajama pants from, my lower abdomen straight to my clitoris.
Well, that escalated quickly.
I gasped, my eyes closing, my head hitting the wall at my back, my hands fisting in the comforter on either side of me. I couldn’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
“I can feel you,” he said, his voice still a growl as the pad of his thumb circled me through the two layers of fabric, pressing, searching. “You’re so wet. Is that for me?”
“As the, uh.” As the prophesy foretold. I choked out instead, “And thus, I die,” and tried to shrug, making a joke of it, because—OMFG—I was ten seconds from orgasming. Honestly and truly. My lungs were on fire, my body clenching around emptiness, my skin stretched too thin.
And I was mortified.
He’d barely touched me. There’d been no buildup. One small stroke followed by two barely-there circles, and my body had gone zero to the speed of light.
I can’t breathe.
Some abrupt instinct had me clawing at his wrist, my hand fisting around his thumb to stop the efficient circles. I was wound too tight, it—everything—felt overwhelming.
“I—I’m—”
“Shh. Let me.” His lips were on my neck, making me shiver, and he pried my fumbling hands away, threading our fingers together.
And then he was guiding me to my back.
And then I was laying down.
And then he was there, over me.
I experienced a split second of pure terror, of fear—my mind telling me that someone was above me, covering me, holding me down, and I couldn’t move—but then Abram came into focus, settling himself between my open legs. Abram’s scent filled my lungs. Abram’s hips spread me wider. Abram’s mouth sucked at my neck, eliciting more shivers, and my terror was nearly eclipsed by surfacing wonder of seduction.
Abram rolled his pelvis, and the hard length his erection pressed right where I needed. Fear diminished, waned, but didn’t completely extinguish. It became a quiet whisper instead of a clamorous shriek, inexplicably amplifying my senses without overwhelming them.
I can’t breathe.
But I did breathe. I inhaled him, the Abram fragrance that both calmed and excited me. It spread like a velvety cloud, invading and liquifying each clandestine corner and hidden space and secret desire. It communicated a history without words: security and safety, longing and need.
I gasped again, my back arching sharply, my hips wanting to move. “What—what—oh God.”
He made a noise, it sounded frustrated, his breathing now labored, his body heavy—so heavy—above me. Holding my hands on either side of my head, he rocked, sliding up and down, stroking me through our layers of clothes. I couldn’t move. I was wholly trapped, inexorably tangled up and in and by Abram.
Penny Reid is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA TODAY Bestselling Author of the Winston Brothers, Knitting in the City, Rugby, and Hypothesis series. She used to spend her days writing federal grant proposals as a biomedical researcher, but now she just writes books. She’s also a full time mom to three diminutive adults, wife, daughter, knitter, crocheter, sewer, general crafter, and thought ninja.
Oh my!!! I can’t wait!