Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 107687 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107687 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
“So, listen. They’ve got their Xboxes and I’ve got mine, all in our own rooms. Meet up tonight?” Flynn asks, pulling me from my admiration of Austen.
“Can’t. She broke my Xbox,” I say, nodding toward Austen.
“What?” Flynn asks. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, but she’s buying me another one.”
“Why did she break it? And, really, who is that?”
“Long story,” I say as she starts for me. Well, not for me, but the door. I fall into step with her as we head inside. “Hey there, Janie. How you doing?”
She gives me a dry look. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“How’s your day going?”
“Just fine,” she says curtly as we climb the steps of the video room. When she stops, I stop, and when she climbs a step, I do the same, until she stops moving, eyeing me. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Walking with you.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought we could chat.”
“About what?”
“Did you tell you-know-who about your roommate?”
Oh, if looks could kill. Her eyes narrow to slits as she looks around the room, her irises golden flames when she meets my gaze again. “No, and I feel this is a discussion for when we get home.”
“Home. I like the sound of that.”
She sighs loudly, her eyes wild. “Your arrogance is downright infuriating.”
I beam at her. “Or endearing.”
She scoffs. “I am sure there is absolutely nothing endearing about you.”
“I can show you a few things,” I tease, and her cheeks flush. Oh, I really like that color. What am I doing?
“I’d rather not entertain that,” she says, cutting by me. I don’t give her any room, so her whole side touches me, and I get a wonderful whiff of cake. Like frosted cake.
“You smell like a baked good.”
Her brows slam together. “Thanks…?”
“Makes me hungry,” I inform her, my voice low.
“Then go find something to eat.”
“Don’t know if food is what I want.”
Her lips part. “That is highly inappropriate,” she tells me, her eyes still full of those golden flames. “I am an acting superior.”
My grin grows as my pants get tight as fuck. I don’t know why that does it for me, but man, it does. She holds my gaze, that little tip of her chin defiant. I watch as she moves her hand to her opposite wrist, and she snaps herself four times. I count them, I feel them, and everything inside me gets tight. “By the looks of it, Superior Janie, I think you like that you dig inappropriate things.”
She gasps, her eyes widening. “I do not.” But the flush in her cheeks tells me otherwise.
“I didn’t think Jane Austen lied. Wasn’t she a saint?”
“I am not Jane Austen, nor is my name Janie. It’s Austen.” She gives me a perturbed look before tearing her gaze from mine. “And I am not lying.”
“I think you are.”
“Well, you are grossly incorrect, and I sense that is a common theme with you.”
I grin. “Shh, the meeting is starting. You’re distracting me.”
I feel her heated gaze on the side of my face before she turns, looking down at where Coach is about to start. I can also feel the heat coming off her body in waves, how she squirms in her seat, but the part that really gets me, that has me fighting for my next breath, is when she snaps her wrist with that damn rubber band.
Snap. Snap. Snap.
I look over just as she looks at me. She doesn’t smile or even glare, but that hand moves, and I feel the pop of the band against her skin as much as she does.
Snap.
eleven
Austen
Snap.
Is he watching me snap myself? I bring my brows in as I look at him, and he cuts his eyes to the front where the coaches gather.
Snap.
I think he is watching me!
Oh my goodness.
Snap.
And why is he sitting beside me? I didn’t even realize I asked it out loud until he looks at me. “We’re friends.”
“We aren’t,” I say quickly, making sure my pen works. My iPad died in the first meeting, so I have to use paper for this meeting. “I have to like you to be friends.”
“You don’t like me?”
“No.”
He doesn’t believe me. Hell, I don’t believe me. “Really? You don’t find me charming?”
“Not even in the least.”
That doesn’t stop that grin on his lips. “Everyone likes me. I’m likable as all hell.”
“Likable as a tick on a nipple,” I shoot back, and the moment I do, I know I’ve made a bad choice. It’s a phrase my sisters and I always said when we didn’t like something. I know it’s silly and a little gross, but we were raised in a barn. I mean, what the hell do we know? Thoughts of my childhood, and even my sisters, vanish when Dimitri has me under his gaze.
That grin widens, his eyes dancing as he leans in. “Have you had a tick on your nip, Superior Janie?”