Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
She reached for the glass with a quiet “Thank you”, and took a cautious sip from the thick paper straw. The icy concoction flooded her mouth too quickly and the intense stabbing pain behind her forehead and in her temples made her cringe and groan.
“Tongue to the roof of your mouth,” Gideon instructed urgently. His advice was sound, of course, but she had her own method for dealing with brain freeze. She cupped a hand tightly over her lips and inhaled and exhaled rapidly into her palm to regulate the temperature in her mouth.
She was in too much discomfort to protest the fact that he’d placed a hand on her knee and was leaning toward her.
The unpleasant sensation passed quickly and she became more aware of his warm palm wrapped over the naked ball of her knee. The concern on his face had melted into an annoyed glare and she wondered what she’d done to irritate him this time.
“What was wrong with my method?” He sounded offended.
“I find that my way is faster and more effective.”
“Of course, it is,” he mocked her with a sneer and Beth fought to keep her face expressionless.
“It’s all quite subjective,” she elaborated. “You could press a thumb to the roof of your mouth as well. Everybody has their preferred method when it comes to dealing with a cold stimulus headache.”
He was staring at her like she was a freak and she stifled a sigh, wishing he would leave her alone.
“Cold stimulus headache?” he repeated incredulously. “Are you too good to say brain freeze like the rest of us lowly mortals?”
“Thank you for the drink,” Beth ground out between gritted teeth. “I appreciate the gesture.”
“But now you’d like me to leave?” he completed for her and she met his stare impassively.
He shuddered theatrically before pushing to his feet. “Yeah, I’d best be going, being around you is giving me a massive fucking cold stimulus headache.”
With that magnificent exit line, he strode away, leaving Beth to level a fulminating glare on his broad back.
“You guys should just shag and get it over with,” Lucy drawled lazily from the other lounger and Beth’s eyes snapped to the woman. She had completely forgotten about Lucy’s presence while Gideon had been there sucking the life and breath out of every animate and inanimate object around him.
“Why do you say that?” she asked, aware that her voice was unnaturally high and thin.
“Come on, Gideon is usually the nicest of guys. He would never not say hello, but he didn’t even see me just now. He was entirely focused on you. It’s always been that way. When he hones in on you, everybody and everything else is just background noise.”
“That’s because he’s so intent on irritating the shit out of me,” Beth dismissed, taking a sip from the—frankly delicious—daiquiri Gideon had made for her.
“I can totally see how someone making a drink especially for you, could be irritating,” Lucy said with a pointed stare at the cocktail in Beth’s hand.
“It was probably an excuse for him to come over here and annoy me. We just…rub each other up the wrong way, that’s all.”
“Why don’t you try rubbing each other up the right way for a change? With some massage oil, a bit of lube maybe, and—”
“Jesus, Lucy, bite your tongue.
“I’m serious. Objectively speaking the man is damned fine to look at. Even I can appreciate that.” Since Lucy liked girls, that said a lot about Gideon’s mass appeal.
“Good-looking is as good-looking does.” Beth squirmed as she said the prissy words. She couldn’t believe she had actually verbalized the prim little assertion.
Lucy guffawed in response to it and Beth couldn’t blame her. She felt her cheeks go hot, but refused to retract the statement, taking another sip from her daiquiri instead.
“Sometimes you’re like a little old lady trapped in a young body, Beth. Is that because your grandma raised you?”
It was a fair assumption, but Granny June hadn’t been an ordinary grandmother. She’d been a youthful fifty-two-year-old when she had assumed guardianship of three-year-old Beth, and more like a mother and friend than a grandmother. She’d had an active social life, often dated younger men, and had been very open-minded about pretty much everything.
When Beth had been twelve Granny June had sat her down to have a frank sex talk with her. To Beth’s extreme mortification, her grandmother had used an anatomically correct dildo as a visual aid. After running through the basic concept of procreation, she’d then moved on to love, and trust, and had informed Beth that if she liked girls and not boys, she would be happy to run through the mechanics of girl-on-girl loving too.
Beth had choked out an embarrassed “no thank you” and had fled the scene, but she’d never felt like she couldn’t talk to her Granny June about any—and every—thing under the sun. Beth did not take after her modern, chic grandmother at all. Granny June would probably have winced if Beth had ever uttered anything so damned uptight in her presence.