Total pages in book: 156
Estimated words: 151044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 151044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Perfect. “Good. I wanted to talk while Elara was still at the park.”
“Oh?” Hale’s tone peaked with interest. He knew Elara being out with the nanny was code for sex. “Talk talk, or talk?”
“Talk. Nothing fancy. Just a shoes-on quickie.” Hmm, maybe sex could be my pre-wedding stress relief strategy. Why go to the gym when I could bang out some exercise at home?
“Let’s make it happen.”
“Okay, but then we have to talk about some wedding stuff.”
“Whatever you need, baby. Drive safe.”
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
The call ended and I found myself smiling. Hale got me. He really did.
With one eye on the road and another on my phone, I cued up my newest playlist, a montage of songs mentioning New York to help me get in the wedding spirit. My mood only got better as King of New York from the Newsies soundtrack blasted. Just as I was belting out the chorus, something caught my eye and I veered into the other lane.
“Shit!” Oncoming traffic swerved and beeped.
I searched the dashboard, certain I saw something with eight legs crawling around the vents. Assuming it was my imagination, I continued to focus on the road, but my singing had dialed back a notch on account of my feeling like I now had an audience.
I was almost home by the time Frank Sinatra was spreading the news when my little stowaway reappeared, dangling from a web and swaying right in front of my face. It just so happened I was also making a sharp turn and the difference between wearing a spider in my hair or not, came down to nearly crashing my car.
Frank crooned about little town blues and my car went careening over the median. Spider gone, I screamed and slammed on the brake, jerking the wheel and slamming the car into park before driving off the road.
My feet hit the pavement and I flipped my head, ransacking my hair and dancing like a lunatic on the side of the road as Frank’s grand finale belted from my speakers and my screams yodeled through the air.
Out of breath, and unsure where the spider went, I panted. That was when I saw the wide-eyed police officer staring at me.
Crap.
“Ma’am?” he said, sounding both suspicious and cautious.
“There…” I panted. “was a spider. I swear I’m not drunk. I only had a macchiato.”
He slowly approached, flipping open his little leatherbound booklet like I was a real perp in a crime. “You cleared the median.”
I glanced guiltily at the divider and back to my car, which was humming and pinging a little more than usual, but I saw no real damage to the old girl. Nervously swiping at my face and neck, I looked up at the cop.
“You seem a bit agitated. Have you taken anything?”
Did he not just hear me about the spider? My finger dug in my ear, making sure the speedy little shit didn’t go that way. “I’m fine. I just don’t like bugs crawling on me.”
His suspicious eyes shifted from me to the car.
If I knew how to flirt, this was where I’d use those skills. Unfortunately, my game with the opposite sex had always been mediocre at best, so I shrugged. “You want to see my license and registration, don’t you?”
“Yup.”
I clicked my tongue and shot him a finger gun signal. “You got it.”
Twenty minutes and one speeding ticket later, I was back on the road with my hands safely positioned at ten and two. My sex window was getting smaller by the minute, so there was no time left to worry about the spider I still hadn’t located. But I knew it was there. I just knew that little fucker was hiding in wait to sneak up on me again.
I shivered and swiped at a loose piece of hair hanging from my bun.
After some stress relief sex, my focus needed to move to Hale and the wedding. I mentally reviewed my laundry list of concerns I had about moving up the date. We needed to have a serious conversation and make a decision, because the uncertainty was eating away at my insides.
I planned to tell him my feelings and he’d come up with a solution. After he looked in my ear, of course. I scratched under the collar of my cardigan. Gah, I hated spiders.
As soon as I pulled into the driveway the front door opened. Hale waited as I rushed up the walk. “I need you to look in my ear before you can get inside of me.” I lobbed my purse in the direction of the den
“Pardon?”
I waved a flustered hand. “There was an incident with a spider. Just a precaution.”
Like a true hero, he whipped out his phone and turned on the flashlight. The moment he was close to me my hormones rallied. Just the mere touch of his fingers to my earlobe and his breath softly teasing my skin had me ready to take off my clothes.