Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Down here, I do remember hearing that little tidbit from my father a time or two.
He’d said it so many times, in fact, that he had no way to argue with me.
Every single time we’d gone on a fishing trip, he’d always say, “Sorry, Allie Pop, but this is my fish. It’s the rules of the sea. You can’t hand your fish off to anyone else that’s not a baby, or risk never catching another fish for the rest of your life.”
Truly, it was just that my dad loved to fish. And to avoid giving up his chance at a once-in-a-lifetime fish, he never gave his pole over to us. Not even when we begged.
My dad looked at me, then threw his head back and started laughing.
“I need to be let in on this joke,” Cassius grumbled.
So Dad did, telling him about all the times he refused to give fish over to us, ending with how much I loved to fish.
“At one point in time, it was her dream to own a charter business,” Dad added as we made it to where they were currently getting my fish out of the water with the big forklift that they usually used to get the sailfish—and the grouper—off the big boats that reeled them in offshore. “But she found out that she’d actually have to talk to the tourists, and spend a lot of time with them, so she scrapped that idea fairly quickly.”
Cassius snorted. “Finds it hard to be nice from time to time, does she?”
I snorted out a harsh word that had him chuckling, then waited until my fish was completely out of the water before I handed the pole back to Cassius.
He grabbed it and held on to it like it was his favorite new thing.
He gestured toward the fish that was being held up and said, “Go stand for your picture, Snappy.”
I flipped him off.
Then went and stood for my picture.
“Two hundred and ninety pounds,” someone called. “Damn, that’s a big ‘un.”
I smiled.
Only when I was done and the crowd had mostly dispersed, did I turn to him and say, “This one will feed you for more than a few days.”
Then I went back to work and ignored the shocked expression on his face.
What was even better?
The way I felt his eyes on me the entire walk toward The Marina.
CHAPTER 4
The clitoris has 8000 nerves. If you’re gonna get on one of mine, it should be that one.
-Alice to Cassius
CASSIUS
“What are you doing?”
I looked up from where I was tinkering with my bike to find her standing there, looking breathtaking, in jeans and a T-shirt.
Women wore the same shit all the time, yet when she was wearing it, it took my goddamn breath away.
Maybe I was in need of a good lay.
But I doubted that would fix the problem.
No, what I needed was to forget I had morals, not care what it would do to her when I bailed afterward, and just assuage the need that was all but coursing through every single vein in my system.
But when I looked into her eyes, I remembered why I couldn’t.
She was a good girl. She’d expect more before I even got that itch scratched. I’d have to get to know her. I’d have to fuckin’ woo her. And I didn’t woo women. Wooing women meant that I wanted more with them than I actually did.
Sadly, I’d learned my lessons in forming bonds years ago when I lost the last of my family.
Caring about people hurt.
Losing them hurt.
My heart was already fuckin’ broken. I couldn’t care about one single person ever again. I’d been there, done that, got the heartache to go with it.
“What’s it look like I’m doing?” I grumbled, glancing back down to what I was doing in order to keep my eyes from staring at her tits or thighs. Or, even worse, her fuckin’ eyes.
Alice was a knockout.
She was of medium height, but that was the only ‘normal’ thing about her appearance. She had an athletic build and the longest black, thick hair that I’d ever seen on a girl that wasn’t completely fake.
How did I know it wasn’t fake?
I’d possibly pulled it a time or two last week when I’d been helping her stay on the dock as she’d fished.
It’d felt like silk in my hands.
And goddamn, but her body had felt like it was exactly where it was meant to be—in my arms, safe and sound.
Her body, though muscular, was still soft in all the right places.
She had a generous amount of ass and a decent handful of tit.
But all of that was incomparable to her bright green, jewel-like eyes.
I’d never seen a color so breathtakingly green in someone’s eyes before.
They sucked me in every single time that I made eye contact with her, and sometimes it was quite disconcerting what I was willing to do to make sure her gaze stayed on me.