Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“Yep!” Jess barks out before I can utter a word. “We were just waiting for you guys to finish with the karaoke. You sounded so great we didn’t want to interrupt.” Her reply proves she can lie, but she’s shit at it. “Go back and enjoy yourself. We’ll be there in a minute.”
After ushering Heidi back to the festivities, Jess returns her focus to me. “Mark them out for me.” When I peer at her with an arched brow, lost, she elaborates, “You’re no -touch zones. Mark them out for me.”
The simplicity of her question should make it easy to answer.
Regretfully, it doesn’t.
Because nothing in my life is ever easy for me.
CHAPTER 2
JESS
As Caleb contemplates how much of himself to expose to a stranger, I stare at him, pondering why the hell I’m being so brazen with someone I’ve only just met. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not shy by any means, but this—an instant flirtatious connection with a man who is so gorgeous, he deserves his own unique term—is a little eccentric, even for me.
I guess I could blame the tequila shots I had at the start of the evening. They’re bad news for anyone, but that feels like a cheap shot. Even knowing Caleb wasn’t the stripper I stupidly wired money to earlier this week, I acted as if he was. That’s how desperate I was to talk to him when our eyes locked from across the room.
I’ve seen many handsome men in my life, both in real life and via the photographs I perused during my years studying to be a journalist, but none of them came close to Caleb’s qualities.
His lips are plump, his jawline tight, and although the darkness of his tan should lower the intensity of his blue eyes, they appear as cool as the ocean. He is devastatingly gorgeous, and regretfully, I’m not the only one noticing.
Heidi is the first of my friends to get married, so every other woman eyeing Caleb from afar is single and ready to mingle.
Unfortunately for them, Caleb’s panty-wetting eyes are focused on one woman.
Me.
Acting ignorant to the slight shake of his hand when he raises mine to his chest, I lick my dry lips before locking my eyes with his. Although he has yet to point out the regions he doesn’t want me to touch, his eyes expose how bad his phobia is.
He doesn’t want me to touch him anywhere, but at the same time, he wants my hands all over him.
Well, that’s what my deviant mind wants to believe anyway.
After a handful more seconds with our interlocked hands mere inches from his erratically thrusting chest, he pulls them to the side, unintentionally tugging me closer. I’m short, so my arms don’t have the reach his do, and when it came to crashing into his firm-looking chest or the bar next to him, I went with the one that should have hurt less.
It didn’t.
His chest isn’t just firm. It is rigid too.
“Sorry.” I breathe out heavily before attempting to take a step back. I say attempt because before I can get one inch away from him, Caleb stops me from fleeing for the second time in the past five minutes.
As his wide, shocked eyes bounce between mine, his chest rises and falls in rhythm to mine. He isn’t standing close enough to force the movements of my chest, but our breaths are shared, not to mention our synced swallows.
I’m not shocked by our sudden urge to line our throats with spit. The intensity between us is so boiling I’m on the verge of downing the rest of his beer, and I hate malty liquids.
I nod before half of Caleb’s plea leaves his mouth. “Just leave the touching to me, okay?”
He smiles like he appreciates my submissiveness. He shouldn’t. If I’d ever consider a BDSM lifestyle, I’d either sign up as a domme or a brat. That’s as far as my submissiveness could stretch.
After exhaling a big breath, Caleb lowers our hands from his chest before he turns on his heels and heads for the karaoke machine. Since he’s still holding my hand, I fall into step behind him.
Eager for the show to begin, Heidi and half our sorority sisters fill the chairs at the front of the karaoke station while Caleb speaks with the DJ slash anal-karaoke-machine-owner who wouldn’t rent out his equipment without a ‘DJ’ fee.
I shrug at Heidi’s what-the-hell expression when a weird tune drowns out my raging pulse. My confusion is pushed aside for excitement when it dawns on me that it is “Go Down Deh” by Spice ft. Sean Paul, and Shaggy. It’s been trending on TikTok for the past couple of weeks, and despite my assurance to my father that I’ll never shake my ass on social media, I know the dance that goes with this song extremely well.