Page 31 of Ruined Vows

And this, with her in my arms, well… I inhale again, enjoying the way her gorgeous strawberry hair glitters in the sunlight as my chest lifts, and her with it. This is just a perk. I’ll only allow myself another quick, stolen moment before I get control of myself and pull away.

A godawful beeping interrupts this perfect, serene morning scene, and Kira jerks back from my chest, eyes flashing up at me as she swipes at her mouth.

“Oh my god,” she says, freckled cheeks immediately flushing red. “I’m so sorry.”

Her curly hair is rumpled around her bared shoulders. She wears a camisole and pajama pants to bed, and I’ve never seen a woman more gorgeous. She fumbles as she reaches for her glasses on the bedstand, already halfway out of bed. She turns off her beeping phone as she goes.

“Big day,” she says over her shoulder on the way to the bathroom. When she’s awake, she’s a non-stop whir of activity.

No wonder I appreciate the few moments I have when she’s quiet. Seems to only be while she sleeps.

I reach down and readjust my morning wood. Yeah, having her lying all over me was torture, but only in the best way. When I hear the shower turn on, I wonder if she’ll be in there long enough for a quick jerk off session.

Usually, spending more time with a woman has melosingmy hard-on, but it only seems to be the opposite with this one. You’d have thought I relieved all my damn swimmers jerking off twice in the shower last night. But here they are, all but busting to get out of my balls again.

I squeeze the top of my cock.Down boy. Getting rid of some tension in the shower is one thing. I don’t need to be jerking off like a randy goat all the time. I’m a man, for Christ’s sake, not some teenage boot barely out of basic.

I drop to the ground to do my morning hundred. I don’t want to work up too much of a sweat since it’s a busy day, and I know with Kira’s schedule, there won’t be another time to catch a shower. But there also won’t be time to work out, so after the pushups, I reapply my deodorant and fit in a couple hundred crunches until the shower turns off.

We were finally able to drop by my apartment after Kira taught on Tuesday so I could get a duffle of clothes. Naturally, Kira was not impressed with my little studio on the wrong side of 35 in south Dallas. That girl’s such a natural snob she doesn’t even know how to hide the look of horror in her eyes when she glimpses how the other half lives. You’d have thought the folks sleeping off hangovers on the stairs were cranked up and ready to jump her, the way she cowered back from them.

She’s still young, though, I have to remind myself. She might act like most women my age, but she’s a decade and a half younger. It’s only one of the many differences between us.

I mean, come around my place at midnight, and it’s a whole different story. But by ten a.m., everyone’s down for the count.

The Dallas I know is a nocturnal city.

And it’s more than apparent by Kira’s blaring alarm at god, what time even is it? I glance at the clock on the fancy bedside table. Seven fifteen. Yeah. For a woman who wakes up at seven in the morning, she clearly lives in daytime Dallas, which is for a whole different breed of people than I usually interact with.

We don’t even openCarneluntil eight at night. Usually, I sleep until noon.

I stand up as Kira comes out from the bathroom, all wet and glistening, with just a towel wrapped around her. Her eyes go wide when she sees me pop up from the other side of the bed.

“I’ll just wash up quick,” I say.

“We don’t have much time,” she says, eyes zeroed in on my abs.

“Probably why I said quick then, huh?”

That has her eyes snapping to mine and narrowing.

I grin. “Loosen up, Princess. I know it’s a busy day.”

“Don’t call me Princess.”

“Okay, Red.” I head past her to the bathroom.

Her head all but twists off as she whips around. “Don’t call me Red!” echoes past me even after I’ve swung the door shut.

I smile wider.

Oh, today’s gonna be a fun one.

ELEVEN

KIRA

I barely havetime to shove some breakfast salad in my mouth before I make it to the skin place. That’s how I think of what I put myself through on these days: skin, hair, make-up. It takes all day long.

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