Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 106150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
The research Kenji had done on Rowe suggested that his father worked at a chemical plant and his mother was a receptionist for an excavation contractor. The difference in our upbringings was night and day, but I was confident I could charm his parents.
“Linden doesn’t have a single restaurant with tablecloths.” He tilted his head back so he could look up at me defiantly. “There’s one stoplight. One bar. One tiny grocery store. Closest decent hairstylist is thirty minutes away.” He lifted a hand to brush a strand of hair off my forehead before snatching his hand away like he’d touched a flame. “There are no endowments or galas. No polo fields. Folks who are well-off there only have to work one job, but lots work two. My parents need my help so they can pay off their house and retire someday.” He shrugged. “Not your kind of place, that’s all I’m saying.”
I wanted to argue with this. To tell him that I’d been to lots of different places, and not just on exotic vacations—Landry had grown up with less than nothing; Silas, Zane, and Dev with only slightly more—but being familiar with it didn’t mean I’d experienced it. Didn’t mean that I knew at all what it had been like for him to grow up in a town like that.
“Isn’t Purdue University nearby?”
Rowe took a sip of his beer and nodded. “Sure. I’ve gone there a couple of times to, uh… you know, try to hook up or whatever.” His cheeks turned a delicious shade of pink.
“Try? Why didn’t you succeed? I would think a college town would be a fairly good place for hookups,” I said carefully, trying to ignore the feral banshee inside of me who suddenly wanted to kill every Boilermaker on the planet.
“Maybe it would have, but I kept chickening out,” he said softly. “The only thing I knew about those guys was what their abs looked like in a Grindr picture, and all I could picture was my broken body thrown into an empty oil barrel and tossed into the Wabash River.”
“Wow.” I bit my lip. “Does that… happen a lot in Indiana?”
His eyes lit with amusement. “Well, no. But only because people like me remain ever vigilant and don’t allow ourselves to get distracted by lusty hookups, you see?”
“I do see.” I nodded slowly. “You’re right. I wouldn’t last a single day.” I gave in to the temptation and raised my free hand to bracket one of Rowe’s lean hips, then lowered my head to nibble at his lower lip. “If you were anywhere nearby, I’d be far, far too distracted.”
Rowe’s breath caught. I set our beer bottles on a side table, then did what I’d been longing to do since the moment he stepped into the room—I grasped the back of his damp curls and pulled him in for a hard kiss. “You’re fucking irresistible,” I murmured against his mouth, the words coming out like an accusation.
When I pulled back, Rowe’s eyes were a little glassy, the same way they’d been earlier during sex. The front of his joggers tented out, and his neck was mottled again.
I was in trouble with this guy. I wanted him again, and it had only been fifteen minutes since I’d had him the first time. Men did not tie me into knots like this. Not ever. I’d always been way more interested in what I could do with my life than who I could do. But with Rowe… it was like my brain was covered by a thousand stickers of him and then covered with a permanent top coat that would make removal completely impossible.
“More,” Rowe begged, grabbing the front of my T-shirt. “Please.” But before I could agree and rush him back to the bedroom, there was a knock at the door.
“Hold that thought.” I opened the door so the staff could deliver our snacks and perform their turndown service. It felt like they were all moving with exaggerated underwater slowness, but I told myself that was a good thing.
Arm’s length, Sebastian. Light and easy.
But when the last of the room attendants left a few minutes later, my arousal hadn’t let up in the slightest.
“Come eat,” I suggested, gesturing toward the array of desserts, wines, and snacks that had been laid out for us. “I can’t have you fainting on me.”
“Fainting,” he scoffed. He puffed his chest out. “I’ll have you know I reached level six on Gym Joe’s YouTube Bulk-Up challenge.”
“I… don’t know what that means,” I said, but when he passed in front of me to get to the table, I couldn’t help reaching my hands under his shirt to feel the muscles of his abs and chest… and if my thumbs happened to brush across his nipples, then so be it.
“It’s… uh…” His breathing increased as his nipples hardened. “It’s…”