Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 65225 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65225 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
My brows rose. “You haven’t gone in a few weeks.”
The deadpan way in which I said that had him chuckling. “Yes. I don’t have time right now. If I do get to the gym, that’s when I lift. But mostly, I run and do cardio. Sometimes I run the stairs at work about ten to fifteen times. Pushups in my office. Sit-ups next to my desk. This body came naturally to me for the entirety of my life until I turned thirty… then it all started going downhill. If I don’t watch what I eat, I start getting man tits and a belly. Which is funny, because I keep the abs. It just looks like I’m pregnant behind the abs.”
I blinked at his fast, puked words and said, “Do I make you nervous, Easton?”
I’d meant it as a teasing, break the ice because I’m touching this man as I button up his shirt, kind of comment. I mean, the man never rambled when he spoke with other people. Just me.
But he didn’t answer it that way.
There was a long pause as I did up about three more buttons before he said, “Incredibly.”
I blinked, surprised that he’d answered that in the way he had.
“What?” I wondered. “Are you serious?”
I finished the second to last button, then waited for him to reply.
His face was a light shade of red as he said, “Banger, I hate to break this to you, but you’re hot as fuck. You make me nervous as hell. But you’ll be happy to know, I’ve always had trouble talking to beautiful people. I never do well. I either say too much, or too little.”
Beautiful people.
I wasn’t…
“Easton, I’m just a normal woman,” I told him. “There is absolutely nothing special about me in any way, shape, or form.”
He scoffed, turned, and grabbed his tux jacket off of the hanger inside the closet door where a robe would normally be, and then handed it to me slowly.
“I think you don’t own a functioning mirror,” he mumbled. “Here, help me put this on.”
He thrust it at me hard enough that I had to take a step back with his exuberance.
I giggled at him and took the jacket, rounding his back once again to help him get it on.
He groaned as it lifted up into place over his shoulders—a perfect fit, might I add.
“Are you okay?” I asked, my stomach clenching slightly.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “I’m fine. I just hate tuxes, suits, or anything constricting in general. I have a sensory issue that really fucks with my head when it comes to clothes. Needless to say, that’s why you see me in sweatpants so much. They’re really the only things that are comfortable for me to wear without changing an hour after putting them on.”
Easton was a mess.
I wondered if he knew how much I liked to clean up messes?
I grinned and moved around to his front again, repositioning his tux jacket to lay flat, and then reaching for the tie that was in his hands. A simple black one with a zig-zag pattern of red stitching that made his entire outfit pop.
Damn, could the man fill out a suit.
I loved a man in casual clothing—jeans and a t-shirt. Work boots.
I also loved a man in sweatpants and bare feet.
But there was just something about Easton in his tux. It made him look… dangerous.
Dangerous to other people’s health, and my freakin’ heart.
“Do you need help with the tie?” I asked.
He swallowed, and I could tell he was no longer meeting my gaze.
I tried really hard not to smile.
“I’m…”
I wrapped the tie around his neck, buttoned his last few buttons, then started in on the tie.
I’d tied my dad’s tie a half million times.
When he’d go out to any events, or out to a wedding that would require him to be ‘dressed’ as he liked to call it, I’d be the one to tie the ties because he couldn’t do it himself for some reason. Hence the reason I’d learned to tie one in the first place.
Once the tie was tied around his neck, I stepped back and checked him out.
He was still shoeless, his shirt needed tucked in, and he was looking at me like I was crazy.
I liked that I had him on his toes.
“You need help tucking the shirt in, too?” I teased.
God, he was easy to tease.
Now that I knew he found me attractive… it’d loosened something inside of me that was now free to play. To tease. To… explore.
His face flushed and he said, “No!”
I snickered as I said, “Relax, Easton. I was just teasing. Calm down.”
He tilted his head as he unbuttoned his button and started to shove his shirttails into his pants.
My eyes automatically went to his stomach and the small little gap in his pants that revealed a flash of white before being covered by his shirt.