Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
“Well, to be fair, I didn’t know we were at your apartment.”
“You seem nervous.”
“I—No.”
“Now you seem like a liar.” There’s a slightly playful lilt to his voice when he says that, and I don’t know why it makes my stomach flip over.
“I just… I need to get home.”
He shakes his head as if he’s the decider. “Nope. Can’t go back to your place.”
I scowl up at him. I’m still backing away. I want to stop because I don’t know where I’m going, but it’s hard to stop retreating when he’s still stalking toward me. “Would you stop?”
He cocks a dark eyebrow as if he’s not doing anything wrong. “Stop what?”
“Crowding me.” My butt knocks against a wall before I finish saying the last word, and I startle easily, so it comes out as sort of a squeak. I swallow, then shoot him my dirtiest look as I’m forced to look up at him.
He smirks. “I wasn’t crowding you.” He leans in, bracing his arm on the wall next to my head, casually trapping me. “Now I am.”
Wow, he smells good. Really, really good. How does he smell so good when we just ran for our lives through the woods?
That’s not what I should be thinking about right now.
My heart pounds and my mouth feels dry so I lick my lips.
I wish he would’ve left that damn mask on. I can’t seem to think straight at all since he took it off.
Since I’ve lost the thread of the conversation again, I grasp at the last thing I can remember saying that felt like we were on safer ground. “Why can’t I go home?”
He watches me for a moment, his blue eyes not missing a thing—the way I swallow nervously, the way I shift uncomfortably, the way that, despite those things, I don’t shove him or cuss him out or do anything to potentially escalate the situation.
I drop my gaze self-consciously, but it’s a split-second thing.
Finally, he answers my question. “You can’t go back to your place because I assume Kyle knows where you live. I didn’t go to all that trouble to save your little ass just to have him scoop you up outside your apartment.”
I swallow uneasily, shifting my gaze to look up at him again. “I have to go home. I have a cat, and my roommate won’t think to feed her. I can’t call my roommate because I don’t know her number. Besides, Kyle doesn’t know where I live.”
“I’m sure it’s not too hard to figure out,” he states, gazing down at me.
God, his lips are… distracting.
“I also don’t know you,” I add. “While I appreciate your help, I don’t have to listen to you.”
This amuses him. “No?”
It’s a bit obnoxious the way he asks. As if I’m just so fucking wrong, he finds it adorable. “No,” I say primly.
“Who knows where you are right now?”
My chin rises, but only because he knows the answer to that as well as I do.
No one knows where I am right now.
Not a single soul.
Even my digital footprints would never lead here because my cell phone is back at Kyle’s, and the only person who saw me get into this stranger’s car was his friend.
I know without needing to be told that he wouldn’t tell anyone.
Yet again, he doesn’t seem to need me to acknowledge his upper hand. Rather than acknowledge it at all, he asks, “What’s her name?”
“What? Who?”
“Your cat. I want to know what you named your cat.”
The way he says it feels… odd. Intimate.
Not I want to know your cat’s name.
I want to know what you named your cat.
My breath feels sticky inside my lungs. It won’t come out properly.
I almost lose the thread again, but I force myself to focus. “Toast.”
He blinks, then smiles. “You named your cat Toast.”
“Well, technically, it was already her name, I just let her keep it. She was one of a litter of kittens that got dropped off at a shelter. They all had breakfast names. Bacon, Pancake, Blueberry Muffin. Her name was Toast, and she was there the longest. All the other kittens in her litter got homes, but she didn’t, and… you know how shelters make posts on social media telling people things like that so some soft-hearted sucker will immediately make an appointment and hopefully adopt them?”
Smiling faintly, he nods.
I shrug. “That’s what happened.”
Still amused, he says, “So you’re a soft-hearted sucker?”
“Sometimes.”
“Most people wouldn’t admit a thing like that.”
“I’m not embarrassed about it.”
“Why not?”
“I think the alternative’s a lot worse.”
“The alternative being…?”
I think for a second, then shrug. “Being the kind of person who just… wouldn’t care.”
He cocks his head slightly, as if relating more to the other side. “Not caring’s a lot easier.”
“Well, I’m not lazy,” I quip.
He cracks a smile. “I’m glad to hear it.”
That’s an odd thing to say.