Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
He stared pointedly down at my feet, and I clicked my heels together like Dorothy.
I was wearing a second pair of beat-up sandals. For the record, I have this exact style in three colorways; I hate that he probably knows that.
“I’m surprised you didn’t keep them for yourself as a little memento from the best night of your life.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Best night?”
It looked as though he was considering the possibility for a moment before eventually casting it aside. He merely shrugged. “It was informative.”
Informative, my ass. HIS MOUTH WAS ON MY . . .
I lifted my chin, threw back my shoulders, and donned my armor. “Informative, yes. Just for the record, you kiss . . . differently than I was expecting.”
He frowned, eyeing me speculatively. “In what way?”
“I don’t know . . . it’s hard to explain.”
I desperately wanted to look at his full, pouty lips, but that would surely give away my X-rated thoughts, so instead, I looked down at his hand and remembered how intoxicating it felt when he used it to haul me against him. He has quite the grip strength. Who knew?
Beneath my careful scrutiny, his hand flexed, and then he tucked it away into his suit-pants pocket as if it were giving away all his dark, sordid secrets. Those hands did a lot of his dirty work last night. I remember what it felt like when he slid down the strap of my bra, when his fingers bit into my skin, when he cupped my breast and toyed with my—
“Sorry I’ve ruined you for all other men,” he quipped, tugging me back to the present.
I shot him a glare. “Ha ha. Hardly.”
His head tilted as he studied me. “Your cheeks are flushed.” Realization dawned, and I could feel the energy shift between us as he regained the upper hand. “Are you thinking back on it right now? At work? How depraved . . .”
I pressed my hands to my face, Home Alone style, to conceal the evidence. “I walked briskly on my way here. That’s why I’m flush. Last night? Pfft. I barely remember any of it.”
“Liar.”
Of course I was lying. I could recreate the entire night from beginning to end with painstaking detail. The moonlight reflected in Cole’s brown eyes. The gentle pressure of his lips on mine. The slow teasing warmth that spread through my body, a promise of what was to come.
I shivered, and he saw it. The edge of his mouth moved, and I couldn’t stand it—him circling the truth, so close to stealing the innermost part of me. I took a step closer, grabbed his tie, and yanked it so it was just slightly askew. God, it felt good. Juvenile, yes, but we were far beyond acting our age at this point.
“Nothing happened,” I reminded him, effectively ending the conversation like I was slamming together two sides of a heavy book just as I’d gotten to the good part. I was going to climb to the top shelf in the library, way up high near the ceiling where the cobwebs cover the spines of the books. I’d find a dark spot, and I’d shove our book there, hiding it away once again.
His shoulders stiffened, and he looked away with a firm set to his jaw. “Exactly.”
Soon after The Thing That Never Happened, I had a hard time reconciling it. I didn’t tell a single person about that night, and Cole must have kept his mouth shut, too, because word never spread through the resort, thank god. For the first few days I lived in a perpetual state of dread that Lara or Camila or someone else on staff was going to waltz up to me with a knowing smile and say something painfully accurate like “Girl! Oh my god! I heard you threw yourself at Cole!” But when the dust settled and I realized that I’d somehow gotten away with it, my feelings turned inward. They cocooned into me, all day, lying dormant and quiet, only to be reborn at night as I lay awake in my bed. I fantasized about every part of that night with Cole, but in different ways. Occasionally, I would replay it all from start to finish, imagining slightly different endings. Most of the time, my musings were mundane: our kissing would shift into heavy petting and so on. Sometimes, though, my imagination ran wild. The fantasy would end with Cole dragging me back to the shore so he could ravage me like some wicked pirate or, or, he’d not even bother taking me back to shore. Angry, possessed, in desperate need of me, he’d tug my panties aside, and we’d have rough sex right there on the sandbar.
I tormented myself with make-believe scenarios to the point where it started to become painfully obvious that I had a problem. A big six-foot-two, black-haired C-O-L-E problem.