Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Kip grinned. “Unfortunately.”
I sipped my coffee. “You’re a fucking perv,” I said. “And contrary to what you believe, we do not want to see your nipples when you’re going for a jog. Keep your shirt on.”
He regarded me, still grinning, teasing in his eyes.
“You want to see my nipples, don’t you?” he mocked. “I need to keep my shirt on because my wife can’t control herself.”
I almost choked on my coffee when he said the W word. Even in jest, it slammed into me with force.
I was in my kitchen, violently hungover, bickering with a man I’d married yesterday.
My husband.
What the fuck had I done?
“I can control myself, since none of that appeals to me,” I spat, waving my hand at his impressive torso. “Wear a fucking shirt.”
Then I walked out of the room so I could bury myself in my duvet and pretend this was all a dream.
Or a fucking nightmare.
three
Mince and Cheese Pies
I was enjoying the brisk temperature of the Atlantic Ocean and the distraction I got from battling against the tides when something grabbed me.
Because I was previously alone in this vast stretch of ocean, I was taken somewhat by surprise. I wasn’t proud of the shriek I let out, or the seawater that entered my mouth after that shriek. Because I was trying to expel the seawater from my lungs and not drown, I didn’t get to fight against the thing holding me as much as I wanted.
So, the man assaulting me in the ocean was able to do it without much resistance.
I did manage to catch a glimpse of the man in question in order to ascertain that he was not some wild serial killer or rapist.
No.
It was my husband.
Literally dragging me out of the ocean. For whatever reason.
We made it to the shallows, my feet finding the sand and struggling to keep up with the waves and Kip’s long and purposeful strides.
“Let me go, asshole!” I yelled at him, struggling a little better now that I was on somewhat solid ground.
“What the fuck were you doing?” he roared, still gripping my upper arm and dragging me from the waves.
I tried to fight him, but his grip was a vise, and I was disoriented. For whatever reason, he was obviously intent on getting me out of the water. Maybe he’d seen a shark.
I squinted back at the ocean, looking for the telltale fin of a great white. There had been increased shark sightings off the coast but nothing that worried me too much. I was from fucking Australia, for fuck’s sake. A shark or two didn’t scare me.
Kip kept dragging me as I muttered curses, which he ignored. This day was really shaping up to be a shitty one. I should’ve stayed in bed all day and binged the Harry Potter movies. That was a surefire hangover cure.
But no, I’d been determined to get out of the house, far too aware that Kip was banging around the place, sullying my sanctuary.
Now here he was fucking up another place I held sacred.
The proximity to the beach was one of the main selling points of my little cottage. That and the cheap-as-chips rent because my landlord was a seventy-year-old local man who didn’t want to capitalize on his investment. All he asked for was for me to save a croissant for him daily. Which I did.
Not for the first time, I wondered how in the fuck Kip managed to charm the grumpy former Marine who’d owned my cottage since he was first married. He’d once told me it would be sold over his ‘cold dead body.’
Since he was still alive and well, Kip must’ve charmed him somehow.
The asshole.
Once we made it back to the beach and I wasn’t being assaulted by waves, I managed to shake him off more easily.
“What the fuck?” I demanded, hands on my hips, pissed off.
Though if I was pissed off, Kip was something else entirely. He looked positively murderous.
“My question exactly,” he said, voice not quite a yell but much louder than was polite in conversation. Then again, it wasn’t polite to go about dragging people out of the ocean.
“What the fuck were you doing out there?” he demanded, pointing to the waves with an angry jab.
I looked from him to the water, dripping on the sand, a little chilly from the wind picking up and wearing nothing but a bikini.
“I don’t know if the swimsuit is a giveaway or not,” I informed him smarmily, putting my hands on my hips and pushing my chest out just a little.
Kip’s eyes flickered down my body, and I was incredibly aware of my nipples pressing through the fabric of my top.
It was because of the cold. It was nothing to be ashamed of. Free the nipple and all that.
I ignored the heat that sparked in my body with Kip’s fleeting gaze.