Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
You know, just to avoid a lifetime of wondering.
A lifetime? Of never knowing what if felt like to be consumed by this man?
Was she delusional to ever have thought such a thing was possible?
“Maybe you should listen to Gretzky . . .” With her conversation with Tallulah ringing in her ears, Chloe went up on her toes and whispered against Sig’s chin, “And take a shot.”
Strained surprise rippled at the corners of his mouth, his thumbs digging into the pulses of her inner wrists. “Chloe.”
She gave him several beats to accept the invitation, but his restraint only seemed to intensify. Hiding her disappointment with a blithe smile, Chloe extricated her wrists from his hands, though it took him a few seconds to release her—and even then, she could feel him struggling not to snatch them back. That struggle allowed her to hope.
Hope for what, though?
What are you doing?
Unclear. She only knew the phrase get it out of your systems had continued to circle her thoughts until it unleashed a sort of . . . permission. A dangerous sort of bravery.
“So, I’m a little bummed . . .” Chloe said, turning and opening the door of her walk-in closet.
Seconds ticked by. “Why?”
“Because I have a specific top I like to wear for good luck, but I forgot to pack it last time I was in Connecticut,” she said, entering the space. Hesitating. Taking a deep breath. Then stripping off her pink Gauthier jersey, slowly, so slowly, savoring the fact that Sig was watching her disrobe from the entrance of the closet, probably shocked, but unable to look away. Heard his hands smack and brace on the sides of the frame. The creak of wood as the pink material dropped to the floor. His hitched groan. “It’s a black-and-white pattern, has long sleeves and this high, ruffled neck. Silk.” She looked back at him over her shoulder, her knees turning to jelly at his expression—the embodiment of pure hunger. Yearning. The same kind she felt, without cease. “I’ve always played the harp best when I’m naked. And that blouse makes me feel like I’m wearing nothing at all.”
His chest rose and plummeted, his words tangling up in one another. “When and . . . where did you play the harp naked?”
“All the time.” Hanging on to her courage, she removed a forest-green button-down from her rack of clothes, examined it, and hung it back up. “When I used to have one in my bedroom.”
“The harp is in the parlor at your other house,” he grated.
“We have three harps.”
He scrutinized her, jaw grinding, very visibly trying to keep his thoughts on track. “Do you miss having access to one at all times, the way you did when you lived with Sofia?”
Chloe had just taken a pair of cigarette pants off their hanger with the use of unsteady fingers, but she paused to breathe in and out, consider the question. “Yes, I miss having a harp with me at all times. But I like my freedom in Boston more.”
The trench between his brows remained. “Glad to hear it.”
Sometimes she could tell that Sig was recording and cataloging things inside of his head, but she never knew when, where, or how he would unearth them for future use. For instance, a month ago she’d tripped on an uneven floorboard in the hallway outside of her apartment. Sig had wordlessly caught her by the back of her sweater before she could fall down, setting her back upright and going about his business carrying groceries inside. But a couple of days later, she’d left for barre class and found him on his hands and knees fixing the floorboard, while the shamefaced super stood nearby.
She breathed her way through the seemingly endless round of warm shivers, the delight of having his eyes on her nearly bare back. “What do you think I should wear, since I don’t have my lucky blouse?”
“You look amazing in everything, Chloe.”
“You don’t have to sound so irritated about it.”
He made a sharp sound. “Irritated doesn’t begin to cover it.”
“Explain what you mean.”
“The fact that other men get to see you look so beautiful . . .”
She tried to hold her breath, but couldn’t. “Keep going.”
His explanation came out in a gruff rush. “I don’t think it would piss me off half as much if I was the one who knew what you looked like without clothes on.”
Chloe closed her eyes and let the rush of exhilaration travel from the crown of her head, down to her curled toes. She wasn’t supposed to enjoy Sig’s jealousy, right? How many articles and cautionary Reddit tales had she consumed about male behaviors that constituted red flags?
So many.
When she stopped to think about how involved Sig was in every aspect of her life, she knew the boundaries were blurred enough to be nonexistent. Yet she loved him crossing those lines. His possessiveness turned her on. In fact, she craved those too-brief glimpses of it, because she could never feel caged or crowded by Sig. Not the man who’d shown her how to spread her wings. How to navigate the city, buy food for herself, make online payments (when she remembered).