Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77236 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77236 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“Yeah,” I said, nodding.
“Nope. You don’t need that,” he said, swatting the shirt out of my hand when I tried to reach for it.
“What if I get cold?” I asked, raising my brows at him.
“Then you just climb on top of me,” he said, grabbing me, and pulling me with him into the bedroom.
“What about when Frida wants to do her last trip outside?” I asked as we both slid into the bed, me pulling the blankets all the way up to cover my chest. Him, reaching over to yank them back down until they pooled at my waist.
“I’ll take her.”
“Naked?” I asked, smirking.
“Both sets of neighbors are ancient. If they’re even awake, they’re not seeing anything from this far away in the dark.”
“There could be snakes,” I reasoned.
“Worried I might get bit on the dick?” he asked, smirking.
“It would be really… inconvenient,” I said, watching his smile spread.
“Oh, yeah?” he asked, rolling over onto my side of the bed, and pulling me to my side to face him. “Want more already?” he asked.
“I mean… not yet,” I said, trying not to let my anxiety get the better of me, to make me fight back the words that were on the tip of my tongue. “But definitely sooner than it would take to recover from a snake bite.”
To that, he let out a little chuckle.
“Fine, I’ll put on pants and take her,” he said, but even as he said it, he was rolling me onto my back, and settling his head on my chest.
And that was just so freaking… sweet.
My arms rose, one going around his body, the other sifting through his hair, enjoying the feel of him.
It wasn’t long, though, before we both heard the tap-tap of Frida’s nails on the hardwood floor.
Then it stopped.
Even without looking, we could feel her impatience.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, sighing as he climbed off of me, then rolled off the other side of the bed, walking over to his dresser to drag a pair of shorts up his legs, then taking Frida out for me.
Suddenly, my life that had been so safe, but lonely, felt like lightyears away. Like another person’s reality.
Because this one?
In this house with Alaric?
This was the only one I ever wanted to experience moving forward.
That was dangerous thinking, I knew.
But it was too late.
I was already falling for him.
When he walked back in a few moments later, looking frazzled, and explained that they’d had an encounter with a “moth of extraordinary size,” and I saw the same sort of defeated frustration I so often felt when Frida was reactive, I knew that he wasn’t only the right person for me, but for Frida too.
“Come here,” I invited, pulling the blankets back down again.
I watched as all those negative feelings left him in a rush as he shucked out of his shorts, then climbed in the bed, and rested his head on my chest again.
Oh, hell.
I wasn’t just falling.
I’d fallen.
Hard.
And I had no freaking idea what that was going to mean moving forward.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Alaric
She was nervous.
I guess it had been a fuck-up on my part to bring up the party over breakfast, which would give her the whole day to stew on it, to get anxious about it.
Normally, I would just say ‘fuck it’ and back out of it. But I’d made a mistake in telling my sister that I would be swinging by with Siana. And now if I didn’t, she would likely show up at the house, and make Siana feel even more unsteady.
It would be better this way, with other people who represented less pressure, to keep her occupied, so that she didn’t feel cornered by my sister.
Granted, Sass was cool.
She wasn’t going to be doing the third-degree or anything like that.
But I knew Siana well enough at this point to know she was going to overthink it anyway.
“What do the other women wear to a biker party?” she asked, turning the teacup around in her hand over and over.
“That depends,” I said.
“On what?” she asked, head tipped to the side.
“On how late and how drunk they are,” I said, shooting her a smirk. “Might start out in a jean skirt and tank top. Might end up stark fucking naked.”
“In front of everyone?” she asked, adorably scandalized for someone who hadn’t even flushed when, at that first meeting at the hotel, Sion had shown images of full-on fucking on the screen.
I guess, when it came to that, she had a certain level of detachment. Because she personally detached from her content. So she did the same from everyone else’s.
Save, of course, for mine.
The content I hadn’t even thought about since I’d finally gotten to see her in person.
Suddenly, all I gave a fuck about was her attention.
“Yep. Usually, it starts with a top coming off in the pool. Or sometimes strip poker. Truth or dare. Everyone is usually pretty willing to get naked over there,” I admitted.