Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 124971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“Duffy, just shut up for a sec, will you? My head feels like someone is trying to drill oil out of it,” he snapped.
For a moment, I was speechless. Did he actually tell me to shut up? He’d never spoken to me this way. I had two options: calmly explain myself or go mental on his arse.
Normally, with BJ, I would choose option number one and try to reason with him. After all, I had loads to lose. With Riggs, I felt confident I could be free to be who I was—whoever that may be.
Which was how I found myself flinging my arms in the air.
“HOW DARE YOU—”
I didn’t get to finish the sentence, because something terrible happened. Something so terrible, in fact, it took me a few moments to fully digest it. The first giveaway was the breeze between my legs, followed by my cold nipples. My gaze traveled south, down my body.
Yup. Suspicion confirmed. I was completely, gloriously, dreadfully naked.
My towel fell off halfway through my scream. Currently, my nipples were pointing at my future fake husband accusingly.
Oh God, my cellulite was my first thought. He can see my cellulite. And those horrible stretch marks on my waist. Followed closely by I haven’t shaved down there in a while, have I? There was no point now, with BJ gone. This was succeeded by Duffy, you daft cow, would you cover yourself up? He’s staring!
And he was. Riggs didn’t even have the decency to pretend otherwise. He flat out ogled me, his mouth agape, his pupils dilated, his penis . . .
Don’t look at his penis!
After a few moments of channeling my inner deer in headlights, I gathered the towel and secured it around me. My teeth were chattering with adrenaline.
“Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, BUGGER.” I was running like a headless chicken now. First, toward the bathroom, before realizing I didn’t have any clothes there, then toward my bedroom. Then sensible Cambridge Duffy left the building, and the one from Tooting Broadway finally reared her head, coming back from a decade-long sabbatical. “BOLLOCKS.”
“I didn’t even see anything.” Riggs was as believable as George Clooney in Batman & Robin.
“Yes, you did.” I made a beeline to my room, slamming against the wall in the process like a fly trying to penetrate a closed window. “You stared!”
“Okay, I stared.” In a few graceful strides, he was right in front of me, blocking my way to my door. “But I don’t regret it. It was the best thing I’ve seen all year.”
Really? More than Gretchen? More than all the others?
“Please move.” I crossed my arms over my chest, mainly to keep my heart from jumping into his hands.
“No can do.” He leaned against my door, hogging all the space with his massive frame. “You’re just prudish enough to never leave your room.”
I closed my eyes, drawing a shaky breath. “I can’t believe you saw me naked.”
“Don’t be a baby.”
“You’re the one with the poop jokes!” I cried out.
“Look at me, Poppins.”
I was now covering my face with my hands, pretending he couldn’t see me, like a dog sitting under a table.
“No.”
“This is crazy.” I felt his rough, big, sexy palms covering mine, trying to peel my fingers off my eyes gently. I jerked back in horror.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Okay. But can you just listen?”
While I couldn’t listen, I could, apparently, launch into an incoherent tirade.
“What kind of perv stares at someone when they’re naked?” I bit out, my nonposh accent sneaking through. “And it’s not just you being a creep. Everything has been shite today. I failed all of my job interviews. And BJ hasn’t called since, since—you were right, he is a twat. And . . . and . . . money’s tight. I might have to sell my Equinox membership next month. And then I forgot the tacos!” I let out a pained moan. “Our tacos.”
There was a lengthy silence. Granted, six seconds seemed like an eternity after my verbal diarrhea.
“Are you done?”
“Not quite.” I cringed. “But go on.”
“I’m going to touch you now,” he said gruffly, around the time my chest stopped rising and falling like I’d just run a marathon.
I felt Riggs’s hands prying my fingers from my face gently. He kept my palms in his, rubbing circles with his thumb over a sensitive spot between the base of my thumb and my index finger. He waited patiently until my eyes had fluttered open. I couldn’t look at him, even though he stood directly in front of me, only a couple of inches away. His body heat rolled against mine, making my skin prickle everywhere.
I very maturely kept my gaze stuck on the ceiling.
Riggs cupped my cheeks. My body temperature shot to a dangerous degree, and an invisible string under my belly button clenched and tightened. I had to remind myself he was just Riggs, the friendly roommate who joked about having sex with me, without ever actually initiating anything. The same Riggs who didn’t have a penny, didn’t want children, and didn’t even own a bicycle.