Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
They stared at each other, and Hale realized they were both breathing heavily.
Christ, she smelled good.
And she looked amazing.
Further, the meaning behind all the words they’d just hurled at each other suddenly shot through him like a javelin.
Just like he knew when it turned, what was happening between them, when he’d figured it out, she did too.
At first, she looked panicked.
And then she looked the opposite.
But she started backing up, not paying attention to the long tail of the skirt on her dress.
She tripped and Hale darted an arm around her, lifted her off her feet, and then carried her until her back was to the wall.
He pinned her there with his body.
“Hale,” she said unsteadily.
“You were jealous,” he said gruffly.
Her eyes landed on his mouth.
Fuck.
She’d been jealous.
Goddamn it.
Yeah.
He kissed her.
And this time, it wasn’t a tease.
Fuck no.
He didn’t want her mind consumed with what a real kiss from him could be.
He wanted her to have thorough knowledge of precisely that.
She wanted it too. He knew it when he felt her little tongue touch his lips, and he opened, but not to allow her entry.
He invaded her mouth with his own tongue.
Instantly, she had her hands in his hair, her body melted into his, she tipped her head so he had better access, and gave it up. All of it. And she did it moaning down his throat to share how much she liked doing it.
And he liked having it.
So he gave her more.
He had her pressed to the wall, she’d fisted her hand in his hair, he’d snaked his hand inside the slit of her skirt and was tracing the line at the bottom edge of the ass of her panties when the door opened.
He broke the kiss and looked over his shoulder to tell whoever it was to beat it, when he saw Sasha frozen and staring at him. Running into her from behind was Chloe.
Fuck.
“Sash, get a move on,” Chloe ordered.
Sasha turned stiltedly, and that was when Chloe saw them, and her eyes went huge.
She opened her mouth, but before Chloe could say a word, Sasha put both hands on Chloe’s chest, pushed her out and the door closed behind them.
He turned back to Elsa.
Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were sultry, her lips were bruised, but he was surprised to see her shocking red lipstick was still perfect.
The whole package was magnificent.
“How’s that going to go?” she asked in a husky voice he felt in his still-hard cock.
She’d seen his sisters.
“Not great,” he told her honestly. “I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think you’re Chloe’s favorite person. So that can go really badly considering she’s fiercely protective and entirely unable to keep her opinion to herself.”
“Understood,” she mumbled to his bow tie. She then lifted wounded eyes to his. “You said you wanted to see me again. Three days passed, and you didn’t see me.”
“Shit,” he groaned, dropping his forehead to hers. “I fucked up.”
“Apparently, I did too. I fell into an age-old trap, waiting for the guy to make the move.”
Grudgingly, because he liked it where it was, he took his hand from her ass to wrap his arm around her so he could use his other hand to cup her jaw.
“Probably not easy to put yourself in that vulnerable place with Hale Wheeler,” he noted self-deprecatingly.
“No,” she whispered. “I still should have asserted myself.”
A memory from long ago, when he was twelve, surfaced then.
It’s important to communicate very clearly with women. Do you understand me?
He held all the power in their relationship, like his father did in all of his.
So it was on Hale to be clear and follow up.
“I fucked up, baby. And I’m sorry. We had a great date and I absolutely wanted to see you again. I can’t say everyone I’ve met has been trustworthy, and this has happened my whole life, but it’s been particularly prevalent since my dad died. I let that leak into what was going on with us, I didn’t communicate, because I didn’t want to be in that vulnerable place either. And I blew it.”
“You weren’t alone, Hale. I acted like a bitch.”
“We know where we stand now, yeah?”
Her eyes moved down to their bodies to indicate the fact they were standing with him pressed against her, she had both her hands wrapped around his neck, and she was making no move to break their clinch, neither was he, so she couldn’t miss she knew where they stood.
She smirked.
He chuckled.
Then she spoke.
“I’ve already talked to Mankowitz, and Imogen Swan, Gordon Fuller and Maggie Mae. They’re all just as keen to discuss what went down on Rita’s Way and how things have changed as I am. Mankowitz’s people called me back within an hour when I approached him about it. It seems everyone involved in the show was stunned, hurt and angry that the viewers reacted the way they did. Mankowitz never recovered. He said it was the death knell for Rita’s Way, even if they limped along for a while. He wanted to do something like The Next Life since it happened. In fact, it’s his response to what he refers to as ‘that utter bullshit.’ It’s also one of the reasons it was essential that Imogen play the lead in The Next Life. He wrote it for her. As a progression. A subtle way to show she was incredibly popular then because she was so fresh and pretty and talented, and she hasn’t lost any of that as time has gone by, and in fact, has only gotten better.”