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)
She hunched down, ass to calves, and gave Ursula a good scratch as she took it all in.
“More than,” I agreed, looking around again. “When I first moved in here, I nearly orgasmed looking at the kitchen.”
Salem looked at the kitchen, then pointed at the ceiling. “It’s the wood for me. Makes me feel like I’m outside. Not quite so stifling as regular ceilings.”
“I’m not sure what’s with you and your enclosed spaces,” I said, remembering as a child how I would find her in the woods sleeping underneath the stars rather than in her comfortable king bed. “But I knew you’d like it as soon as I saw it.” I curled my legs up underneath me before saying, “How are you really?”
Salem sighed, reached up, and pulled the hairpin that’d been holding the fake dreads in her hair out.
The usual auburn locks fell free, and all of a sudden she wasn’t the little rebel anymore that she knew my mother would hate.
“Your mother locking me in closets might’ve had something to do with it,” she grumbled.
My mouth dropped open. “She did what?”
“Only the once,” she admitted. “And she claims that she didn’t know about it. She also claims that she didn’t know about my fear. But when have you ever known your mother to do something she didn’t feel like doing?”
She definitely had a point there.
My mother didn’t do anything that she didn’t plan ahead first.
She also had almost every single step she took mapped out to the point where she knew what would happen when she took that step.
I’d never met a more vindictive woman in my life. Or cold. Or callous.
Needless to say, I didn’t really miss her at all.
I think what bothered me the most was that eventually I would have kids, and my kids wouldn’t have a grandmother that doted on them like they deserved to be doted on.
Then again, I knew for a fact that Easton would make up for anything that went missing via an absent grandparent. And he would never let our children want for anything.
Imagining Easton as a dad was enough to make my ovaries sing.
“What’s with that look on your face?” Salem asked.
I ran my fingers through my hair and then decided to just blurt it out.
“I want to have kids with Easton,” I admitted. “The idea of having children, of having Easton’s children, is exciting enough to make me want to have them right now.”
“That’s good to know.”
Easton’s deep voice had me whirling around so comically, that I nearly fell right onto the floor.
I winced as I had to reach out to catch myself on the bar and only ended up whacking my wrist against the marble.
“Easton.” Salem snickered. “We didn’t hear you come in.”
I felt my face flush a solid red and knew there was no denying what I’d said, and he’d heard.
“If it makes you feel any better, I want you to have my babies, too.” Easton grinned wickedly at me.
God, that smile.
Even better, his mouth.
I wanted it on me.
I wanted…
“And there’s that look again,” Salem chirped. “What have you done to my baby sister, Easton?”
Easton’s eyes were shining with mirth when he said, “I didn’t do anything but chase her.”
“But stalk her,” Salem corrected.
“But stalk her,” Easton agreed.
“And he really didn’t even do that all that much,” I defended his actions. “He really just looked into my life. And had I had the means, I probably would’ve done the same to him before I knew him.”
“Because y’all are both crazy pants.” Salem shrugged, then sobered. “But not near as crazy as the other girl that shall not be named.”
Easton sighed. “That reminds me why I came back home.” He looked apologetic before he said what he had to say next. “I want you two to stay here, in the house, for today.”
I grimaced. “I was thinking about picking up a run with Salem.”
He looked torn. “Where is the run?”
Salem looked at me as if that was news to her.
I shrugged at her and said, “Mississippi. Biloxi to be specific.”
He tilted his head and said, “How about I get you an escort to the Louisiana line and make sure that no one is following you. And you promise to call me the instant you think there’s trouble.”
I could do that.
“Okay,” I amended. “I can do that, with one exception.”
“Which exception?” he asked warily.
“You come give me a kiss before you leave again,” I bartered.
His eyes went heated and soft at the same time, and then he was pulling me off the barstool I was half-hanging on to still and laid a kiss on me that I’d remember for the rest of my life.
When he finally pulled away after practically devouring my mouth, his cheeks were flushed just like mine were.
It was the sweetest thing I’d ever seen in my life.