Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
His skin is hot. It’s not feverish hot, but it feels that way to my fingertips. They’re flipping out, along with the rest of me, and that includes all my lady bits. They’re having quite the good, unexpected two in the morning, not a big mouse but a sexy man in the kitchen, hurrah.
The noises he’s making are way too sexy. Little grunts of pleasure as I work the muscles of his shoulder and bicep. “You should go for massages more often. I’m no professional, but if it feels okay, maybe it would help.”
I get a long, low sigh in response. “They want me to have another surgery.”
I momentarily stop because I’m shocked. “Another one?” I make my hands work again, getting the other one in on the action.
“Yeah, another one. There’s always some cutting-edge this or that that’s supposed to work miracles, and of course, it never does. Plus, the recovery time always sucks. It’s always painful, getting cut open and stitched back together. I’m just…really tired of it.”
I hear the resignation in his tone, and I can hear how wounded he is. How he has very little hope of ever getting back to whatever his normal used to be.
“Even if they can fix my arm, they can’t fix my head.”
“Hey, don’t say that. Your head doesn’t need fixing.”
“You’ve seen me sit in a car. It definitely needs fixing.”
I take his chin in my hand before I register the fact that I’m moving up from the massage, literally, to touch him somewhere else. I don’t have any right to be doing this, but he doesn’t shrug me away, so I cup his face and make him look at me. “You don’t need to be fixed, Darius.”
“Yeah, you could have married worse.”
I grin, dissipating the tension. “You’re right. I could actually be stuck with Bradford.”
It only takes a second before his serious facade cracks down the middle. “You could have.”
“Him and his pet donkey.”
“I’d pity that donkey, that’s for sure.”
I decided on a universal truth when I was away. I missed him, and I can admit it. Furthermore, he’s lovely. From his brown eyes with the gold flecks, which remind me of those chocolate bars with hard caramel pieces in them, to his upturned lips, which are still kind of gnawed on from when he was concentrating on that jar, to his hard, darkly shadowed jawline, he’s pure beauty. His goodness and kindness, his generosity with me, and his desire to help my family only make him more attractive, and that’s on top of the deep inhale of intoxicating male cologne I’m getting.
God, I really wish he would kiss me right now.
My nipples and hoo-ha echo that sentiment, doing a double down, tightening up, and throbbing.
His smile is so lazy and sweet. He looks so good in that T-shirt with all his muscles on display, and it’s a crime those jeans aren’t edible because I’d like to peel them off his body with my teeth and consume them before I lick him from head to toe. His hair is mussed just a little on the one side as if he rolled out of bed and threw on some clothes to come down here because he was starving too.
My heart clenches up and beats faster and harder, knocking the wind out of me because it’s a little too out of control. I can feel my eyes closing in a please, for the love of god, kiss me now gesture. I don’t actually expect he’ll go for it because we’re friends, and he probably doesn’t want to jeopardize that by taking things up a notch that we’ll both likely regret when it’s not two in the morning, and we’re not fueled by hunger, which can make people do crazy things, but I’m wrong.
Oh god, I’m so wrong, and it’s so, so good.
He doesn’t do one of those crushing kisses. My hands are still on his warm, scruffy cheeks, and he leans in, and I basically guide him to me even with my eyes closed. He takes his sweet time, and all I can smell is him. I know he’s getting close because I can feel his warm, minty breath on my cheek, and then he grazes his lips over mine. Yes, grazes. He barely touches me, but that quick scrape of the softest lips makes me whimper, and then all bets are off because I’m threading my hands through his hair, dragging his face to me, and vacuuming his lips into my mouth. Alright, so I have a little more tact than that, but the lip-crashing thing happens now. I throw my arms around his neck and wriggle up against him, needing to be closer. Closer. Still not close enough.
The fire that sweeps through me burns hot and fast like the kindling was already laid, all the paper scrunched up and the driest possible sticks waiting for the first strike of the match.