Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 73716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
But this man? He had muscles for years. His tattoos were beautiful. He had skin that most women would die for, and most of all, he was way out of my league.
“It’s gotta be good, honey ” Tobias broke me out of my thoughts.
I stopped what I was doing, and realized I’d been rubbing the lotion into his back for much longer than the time that it would normally take to complete the task.
“Yeah, you’re good.” I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry. These tattoos are amazing; I forgot what I was doing.”
His quiet laugh had me blinking up at him.
“What?” I asked as he stared down at me with humor lighting his eyes.
“Nothing.”
Then he struck like a snake, lifting me into his arms and then bodily throwing us both into the pool at our backs.
I gasped a lung full of air before I went down into the water, sinking with the large man who was wrapped around me like a monkey.
The shock of the water hitting my skin from every single direction assaulted my senses, sending my heart rate skyrocketing.
I screamed under the water as the arms around me let me go, and instinctively kicked to the surface. The moment my head broke water, I started to look around for the man who was about to die, and found him all the way across the pool, staring at me with laughter lining his face.
“You’re going to die,” I informed him.
His grin was unrepentant. “Gotta catch me first, sweetheart.”
Now, here is where I tell you that I was an excellent swimmer.
In high school and college—before the incident that changed my life irrevocably—I’d been a competitive swimmer. I was on the swim team, competed in meets and was actually pretty good at it.
But my skills held nothing on those of the man in front of me.
He was like a freakin’ fish.
Every time I swam toward him, he dodged the opposite way. When I put on the speed, he put on the boosters.
By the time I broke the water a few minutes later, exhausted and thinking I might die, I was still no closer to catching him.
“You’re no fun,” I pouted.
He was across the width of the pool from me, staring at me.
Well, my chest.
I looked down to see my breasts acting like their own flotation devices at the water line, and realized rather quickly that the suit had slipped down in my exuberance to get to him.
It wasn’t flashing him my nipples…yet. But any more activity, and I would be.
I pulled it up, and his eyes finally came to mine.
“I swim a lot,” he declared. “Plus, I don’t want you to kill me. I like myself too much.”
I snorted and moved toward him.
“Come on,” I teased lightly, making my way to him. “Be a man.”
His brows rose in unison.
“A man would stay still and let the woman he lo-likes…” Had he meant to say something else? The man never stutters! “Do whatever she wants to him?” he finished.
I nodded firmly. “Yes.”
He laughed in my face and would have taken off again had the water not splashed at our backs, signaling the entrance of other people into our secret hideaway amongst the old folks.
I turned and found a couple of men—who had to be cops by the watchfulness of their eyes—in the pool up to their chests.
“Yo,” I heard Tobias say. “What took y’all so long?”
Each man had a beer in his hands, and they were palming them like they were their best friends.
“Apparently, you’re only allowed to bring one bottle of alcohol with you. Also, you’re not allowed to have your gun.” The first man holding the bottle of Heineken said. “The guys at the metal detector were all like ‘Mr. Asher Connely, you’re not allowed to have firearms on this vessel.’ So I had to call my sister back and have her come get my piece.”
The man, Asher, had a man bun and a beard, two things that I’d developed a fascination with when they’d first become popular a few months ago. Only, this man’s ‘man bun’ wasn’t much of a man bun but more of a convenient way to stow his hair out of his face while he did extra-curricular activities.
He was tall, built and tattooed. Though, he was white…very white. So white, in fact, that if he didn’t put on some suntan lotion very soon, he’d be burned to a crisp in a matter of minutes. He was literally the color of my sheets at home on my bed.
“It was embarrassing that this booze-a-holic even came with me,” the other man grumbled.
And dear, sweet baby Jesus, was he pretty.
He looked like Dr. McDreamy from Grey’s Anatomy…only more rugged.
A lot more rugged.
He had silver at his temples, beautiful ice blue eyes, and a salt and pepper close clipped beard that was so freakin’ sexy that if Tobias hadn’t been standing at my side, I would’ve said he was easily the hottest person I’d ever seen.