Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
“What the hell, River? You’re meant to be manning the stairs for me.”
He scowls at me, disliking my language, before wrapping me up in a big, warm hug. He can’t converse with anyone without hugging them first.
After squashing the muffins wedged between us, he inches back. “I was, but Knox said you didn’t need me anymore.”
“Knox?” I double-check, my chipper mood slipping.
River didn’t stammer over his words. My blood is simply boiling too perversely to be sure I heard him right.
Even when we were teens, Knox saw me as his competition. He forever sniffed around the girls I was interested in hooking up with, seeking feelers on if they might pick him over me. It didn’t bother me in high school. I was young and stupid. But now… now I feel like going on a rampage.
He’s too late this time around. The verdict has already been decided, but since I’m not a man who kisses and tells, Knox doesn’t know that. He could be trying to schmooze Nicole as we speak.
“Jabbing it won’t make it go any faster,” River says with a chuckle when I stab the highlighted presidential suite button over and over again. “It will only get us stuck in here.” The reason for the annoyance in his tone makes sense when he says, “I left my tablet in my room, so you better quit pushing it. I don’t want to look at your face and only your face for hours on end. I love you, Laken, and I missed you heaps, but a stud like me can only take in so much handsomeness in one day.”
His reply reminds me of the words we exchanged when he raided the mini bar in my hotel room. “Your tablet is on the bedside table in my room. Remember? You spilled coke on it, so we cleaned it with the hotel towels before showering.” I show him how the hairs on my arm are still sticky and standing on their ends.
“That’s right,” he replies, the relief on his face unconcealed. “Thanks for reminding me.” He squeezes me tight for the second time, then selects the thirty-seventh floor. “I would have remembered if you hadn’t woken me with the sparrows.”
My words are scarcely heard through my chuckles. “It was ten a.m.”
Extra spit arrives with his short reply. He always has an excess amount of slobber when he’s being sassy. “Exactly.” After exiting the elevator, he spins to face me. “Meet you up there?”
When he looks so far up I see only the whites of his eyes, I jerk up my chin. “Bring an appetite with you.” I jiggle the bag of muffins in my hand. “I bought extra.”
I only just witness his leap into the air before the doors close and the elevator continues its journey to the hotel’s top floor. Thank fuck River was in the car when I entered. I don’t know if my legs would have been up for another twenty-story climb. They almost collapsed on me multiple times last night, but I refused to give in to the exhaustion overwhelming me until Nicole was as riveted by me as I was by her voice.
My god, that woman can sing. She has the voice of an angel, but that’s the only thing saintly about her. Her body is wickedly delicious, her face pure fucking ecstasy, and she sucks dick like she hasn’t consumed a single calorie the entire day.
She’s also witty, funny, and humble as fuck. She can’t take a compliment if her life depends on it. She blushes before trying to push the praise onto anyone but her, and since that is usually done with sexual ambiguity, it kept the tension high until the wee hours of this morning.
We would have still been fooling around now if Nicole hadn’t passed out.
The thought makes me grin like a smug prick, and it brings back the spring in my step when I exit the elevator outside of the presidential suite.
I manage two lengthy strides before my steps are halted by the man I am grateful as fuck isn’t flirting with Nicole on the rooftop.
“Laken.” Before I can pivot to face him, Knox requests me to join him in the foyer of the presidential suite. “We’ve got important shit to discuss.”
“Can you give me a minute?”
I sound ungrateful and I hate it, but I’m more itching to get back to Nicole than to thank Knox for a generosity I earned.
He stares at me as if people not jumping to his every command isn’t a common occurrence. “Come on, man. Stop messing. We’re already meant to be on the road.”
“Then what’s another two minutes?”
Stealing his chance to deny me again, I sprint for the maintenance door, take the stairs two at a time, then burst through the door I glanced at a hundred times last night to make sure I was the only lucky bastard to see Nicole naked.