Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 66267 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66267 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Boss Frost: Status report?
It’s like seven in the morning.
He’s probably sleeping.
As if she can hear my thoughts another message flies onto the screen.
Boss Frost: I tried calling. Straight to voicemail.
I allow myself permission to glare at my phone.
Again!
He’s most likely sleeping!
What does she want me to do? Provide her photographic proof?
Boss Frost: New rule. You MUST provide me with photo evidence that he is still in town EVERY. DAY.
Of course if I think it, it will come.
That “mysterious” Femme Fatale known as Fate is determined to fuck me harder than anyone else in this overly populated city.
Me: Understood.
What was once going to be an easy morning primarily filled with making lists for things like groceries and best restaurants in town divided by cuisine swiftly transitions into one of haste that has me stubbing my big toe on the doorframe during my rushed exit.
I don’t know why I’m in such a hurry.
He couldn’t have left without me knowing.
He doesn’t have any of the alarm codes to disable the security system – although I guess he could’ve watched me type them in…
Well, he doesn’t have access to a car.
Then again, I guess he could just have Uber or Lyft or another vehicle share grab him…
I feel like if he would’ve left I would’ve heard him make some sort of sound!
It’s not as though I was fucking asleep.
No.
I was making a list of things I needed to grab from my apartment and a list of things my baby sister needs to take to her dorm while listening to Attack on Titan because trying to catch up on other anime shows I love but haven’t had time to finish would require more focus than I had.
“Tucker?” I cautiously call out the second I reach the edge of the stairs. “You up?”
Silence echoes throughout the newly entered space.
Pure. Silence.
“Um…Tucker?”
Still receiving nothing pushes me to start opening random doors while repeating his name in the most hopeful tone I can muster up. Empty closets are followed by empty pantry finds and eventually the laundry room where I imagined would have his wardrobe waiting for me to wash yet nothing.
Nada.
Not even the faintest indication that someone had even been in there before me.
Shit.
He…he really wouldn’t just…bail less than twenty fours of being here, would he?
Would he?!
It’s a really fucking nice house!
It even has its own private boat dock!
“Tucker!” I shout louder and more urgently now having left the open kitchen area.
I would simply just check his room if I remembered which one it was, but I don’t, because I didn’t know I needed to study the floorplan of this maze masquerading around as a mansion!
Reaching a set of double doors that have to be the master bedroom versus another study has me immediately knocking on the blockade. “Tucker?!” Two more heavy hits are given. “Tuck, you in there??!”
Nothing.
Oh, dear Da Vinci, tell me you’re fucking kidding me!
Bursting into his room reveals a slept-on top of the mattress situation – since the sheets are still tucked neatly in but the pillows are in disarray – however, nothing else.
No signs of him.
Or the one piece of luggage he has.
No…
No. No. No.
Please, no.
Please do not let my list of what to grab from my apartment have to become a list of how to afford my apartment.
Desperation shoves me further into the room, propelling me to check the ensuite bathroom without knocking and in doing so I’m revealed a sight that causes at least one ovary – if not both – to explode. His intricately embellished skin is even more beautiful with water droplets dancing across it. Against my better judgment – or really all of my judgment to be more exact – I allow my eyes to admire the sights they didn’t see yesterday. The windmill tattoo on his bicep seems to be blowing tulip petal towards his collarbone and black coral pieces towards the center of carved chest. Slightly over to the side of where their trail ends is a word near his heart. The word itself is inked in an old typewriter font. And it’s that word…that subject that I think is what’s going to connect us.
Keep us connected.
Art.
While his eyes were initially closed upon my entry, his lids suddenly peel themselves upward to reveal a blue gaze I can’t deny is making my panties a bit uncomfortable. Cockily, he waggles his eyebrows. “Wanna get in?”
Yes.
No.
Tucker takes a bite of his bottom lip stealing from me an unapproved whimper alongside an undeniable pulse between my thighs.
Okay, yes, I wanna get in.
No, I’m not going to.
That is definitely not the type of photograph evidence his aunt is requesting.
“Um…” my phone wielding hand winds around in fruitless circles until my elbow bumps into the nearby glass shower, reminding me to continue speaking, “why are you naked?”
“Why are you wearing Charlie Brown Christmas Pajamas in June?”