Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 65480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
“Ethan, get out of the bathroom!” I make a fist and bang on the door. “I have to get ready for work.”
I hear the loud shower knobs turn on the other side of the door. Ethan laughs, and then the water stops running. Bastard.
A few seconds later, Ethan cracks the door to allow me to push my way inside. He’s standing in front of the mirror with a towel wrapped around his waist, slung low enough for me to see the V of his abs that lead down to his…
OMG, stop it, Mia. Get your shit together. It’s just abs… and muscles bulging from… everywhere.
Ugh, someone help me because Ethan Waters is pure fucking perfection. I hate myself for allowing the thought to creep into my mind. But it’s hard to deny his sex appeal. My older brother’s best friend has always had this power over me. No matter how much I want to hate him, I can’t forget the person I once knew. He has to be in there somewhere, I’m sure of it.
Steam from the shower clouds around him, reminding me of a commercial for body wash. Ethan could model no problem. Water drips from his shaggy brown hair and trickles down his handsome face. A mist dots his thick chest and muscular arms, drawing my attention to every curve of his defined stomach. I bite my bottom lip once I get to the well-defined muscles that trace down to his package.
“See something you like, princess?” His deep voice pulls me from my sex-induced haze.
I look up at Ethan with my jaw clenched in anger. “Nope, not anymore.”
He reaches behind me, pushing my face into his wet chest to shut the bathroom door. “Don’t let Will hear you say that.”
I step back and roll my eyes at him, wiping the water from my face. “Like he would ever believe we were friends.”
“You didn’t sneak outside to talk to me every night because you wanted to be friends.”
“Don’t act like you know what I wanted from you,” I spit back. “You bailed on me without a second thought and still won’t admit why you left. It’s not like you would’ve been interested in a kid. You were on your way to college, and now look at you.” I wave my hand at his body. “You have plenty of women falling all over you, and why wouldn’t they?”
Damn, my stupid mouth and my inability to control saying my thoughts aloud.
Ethan flashes one of his panty-dropper grins even I’m not immune to after all these years. “If things were different, I would have waited until you were older.” He lifts a razor from the sink. “I didn’t move on. I had my reasons for going back to Boston.”
I lean my back against the wall and stare at him, folding my hands over my chest. “Whatever. You don’t owe me an explanation. We were two kids who needed someone to talk to about our shitty lives.”
“And now you hate me because I left.” He says it more as a statement.
I nod in answer.
Ethan lathers his face with shaving cream, staring at me out of the corner of his eye. “You hate me for the wrong reason.”
“I don’t want to live in the past anymore.” I remove my toothbrush from the holder and nudge Ethan with my hip to make him share the sink with me. “I have to get to work before I don’t have a shithole apartment for you to crash.”
Without another word, Ethan glides the razor along his jaw, his gaze still fixed on me. I wish he would stop looking at me. The intensity in his eyes pricks my skin with tiny bumps. A strange feeling stirs inside my chest, and if I’m being one hundred percent honest, he’s doing something between my legs, too.
I want to ask him so many questions. But what’s the point? My brother still has no clue we used to meet every night in my parents’ backyard. Since his return from Boston, we’ve pretended to hate each other to keep Will from seeing the sparks between us. So, why stop now? Let’s keep this charade going.
Ethan shaves his face as I brush my teeth, all while we continue to stare at each other in the mirror. Electricity pulses between us and sets fire to my skin. I spit and rinse. He washes his face, peeking up at me from between his fingers.
Even though the hatred I feel for Ethan is real, I still find him attractive. And it’s not just his body that holds my interest. Ethan is smart. He graduated at the top of his class in both high school and college. On occasion, he would even help me with my homework. I struggled with math during my freshman year of high school, and Ethan was the only reason I passed algebra.