Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“Are you feeling better?” she asks.
In reply, I grunt, “I was never not feeling fine.”
She decides to accept my bullshit answer. She motions to the wall. The living room is on the other side. “Do you want to sit in the rocking chair? I just got this mix that’s supposed to replace coffee and tea. It’s all full of nutrients and whatnot. I could make some.”
“What flavor is it?” I ask warily.
“Chai.”
For the love of good fucking fuck. “I’ll pass, thanks.”
“Do you want some water?”
“Had my fill in the shower.”
“You stood under the spray with your mouth open and drank it?”
“No, I drink by osmosis,” I say with a roll of my eyes.
She claps her hands like I’m not the world’s biggest douchebag. “Amazing!” She’s not osmosing my assholery and letting it get to her, which is even more amazing. “I’m going to make a cup for myself. Let me know if you change your mind.”
I go to the living room, humoring her because I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to talk about whatever happened up there or whatever happened to me in the barn or why I keep getting ripped the fuck open and having all my personal shit spill out. This is not a thing. And it’s not going to be a thing again. I said that the last time, yet look at me now. Sitting in a rocking chair in the middle of the night, surly as fuck, because honestly? I’m unnerved. I shook myself up. I don’t like not knowing what the hell is wrong with me. I don’t like the fact that as soon as Ignacia woke up and panicked over it and tried to make sure I wasn’t having a medical emergency, it felt like she cared. That’s what’s still bothering me.
The problem with ice is that it sometimes thaws. Even just a little is too much. It’s too much in the wild. It’s too much inside me. If I were younger and had a few lesser brain cells, I’d file it under the stupid #nofuckingway bullshit, but I’m not younger, and unfortunately, I’ve always been too smart for my own good, and there’s no way I’m ever using a hashtag, even a mental one.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a blur rushes across the room and jumps onto my lap.
Absolute Unit Cat immediately starts treating me like I’m a living bowl of carbohydrates and punches dough on my legs. She circles a few times, puts her paws out, and promptly fills the room with the loudest cat snores I have ever heard.
All in the span of a few minutes.
I’m practically paralyzed. I don’t know what the procedure is for this. I don’t even like cats, but pushing off a sleeping animal, all warm and trusting and soft and still sleep-purring, feels wrong, even if she smells like a strange combination of liver and fish. It feels like something only an extremely cold-hearted bastard would do, and I don’t know if my levels are currently up to their regular standard.
Worse yet, Ignacia walks in with one foul-smelling brew in her right hand and a glass of water in her left and sees me getting all soft and mushy about the beast.
“Here.” She tiptoes in like she doesn’t want to wake up the cat and hands me the water. “Just in case drinking by osmosis didn’t leave you fully hydrated, you might want to top up the old-fashioned way.”
She hands me the glass, and then the confounding, infuriating, and shocking woman gets on her knees with her mug clutched in both hands and looks at me with huge sky-blue eyes. “Beau, I’m worried. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. This isn’t a medical emergency.”
“But what about the rest of you?”
“Is this really about the night sweats? Last time I checked, it does happen to lots of people. Many, many people, actually.”
She shakes her head, and I don’t know how she does it, but it’s like those blues are boring a hole straight through my brain. “You’re here, and you’re doing this hot bedding thing. You wanted more nights, but then you act like you don’t want them. Actually, you act like you’d rather take a lighter to your own sack as a very high-risk new way to manscape than be here.”
I haven’t even taken a sip of water, and yet I still very nearly spit it out. “Not my kink.” I’m going for casual, but I fail miserably. If we’re going to continually joke about sex, I might as well pretend I’m not at all affected by it. Because I’m not. I’m not affected. That would imply I’m capable of feelings and emotions, and alright, so it might technically be true, but the term technically is a long stretch.
“I think you’re not okay on the inside. And maybe it’s manifesting on the outside.”