Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“Actually, I was thinking that I’d drive.”
His eyebrows raise. “You don’t know where we’re going.”
“That’s why they invented GPS.” I get up on my toes and kiss him gently, trying not to grin too big. “Come on. Let me drive. I’ve barely been back on the road.”
He reluctantly hands me the keys. “Just go easy.”
I can’t take it anymore. I crack up and brush him off as I head over to the passenger side. He looks totally relieved as he gets in behind the wheel.
“You’re too easy to wind up sometimes,” I say as he pulls out.
We planned this date the second we were apart. He wouldn’t tell me where we were going, but he said I’d like it, and I’m at the point where I don’t really care what we do, so long as we do it together.
I just want to be around him. I wouldn’t have been upset if he had said we were staying at his place, and oh, by the way, Jackal’s stopping by for a visit. No, I wouldn’t have minded that one tiny bit, not after the last time. I swear, I can still feel him between my legs, even though it’s been a few days.
This is our first official date as Marco and Laura. He seems himself, almost identical to Jackal, except somehow more relaxed. Jackal is stiff and imposing like a monster from a dream, while Marco seems calmer and looser as he navigates the car away from Chicago and out toward the suburbs.
“Are you about to kill me and bury me in the woods?” I ask him, batting my eyelashes. I put a hand on his thigh and his eyebrows raise. “Because that’s about the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“You have a very twisted sense of humor, you know that?”
“That’s true. But I didn’t realize I was kidding.”
He smirks as he takes my hand from his leg and raises it to his mouth. Without taking his eyes off the road, he kisses my fingers slowly, lingering on each one. It sends a thrill of excitement deep into my core.
I’d been worried that I wouldn’t have the same chemistry with Marco as I have with Jackal, but he’s already wiping that out of my mind.
He asks me questions about myself as the drive stretches. He wants to know about what it was like growing up a Bianco, what my favorite shows and movies are, what I like to do for fun. I’m a hermit, so my answers are mostly sculpting, sculpting, and more sculpting, but we have other things in common. Like we both love the lo-fi beat playlists on Spotify. I put them on when I’m blocked with my work, and he has them playing while he breaks into computer systems.
I ask him how he got into hacking. He talks about growing up poor and lonely, and finding solace online. “I was deep into the real creepy parts of the web,” he admits with a bashful smile that’s frankly sexy as hell. “Getting into places where I wasn’t supposed to be became my outlet, you know? It was my distraction. My home life wasn’t great at this point and I was living in my cousin’s basement.”
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen when my mom left. Eleven when my dad died.” He shrugs a little and glances at me. “I found ways to hide from the pain when I was younger. I guess it served me well as I got older.”
I hate the idea of young Marco suffering. I want to press him about his parents, but he moves on from that subject and pesters me with more questions. I don’t have very interesting answers, but that doesn’t seem to deter him at all. If anything, the more we get talking, the easier the talking becomes, like it doesn’t matter what I say or how I say it, the conversation will just keep flowing.
I can’t remember the last time I talked to someone like this. Easy, free, no worries, no stress. Angelo’s probably the only other person in my life I can have a conversation with for more than a couple minutes, and even that’s a stretch.
This half-hour car ride feels like five minutes. There’s no silence, no gaps, no awkwardness, and I find myself more energized by the end of it. Usually, social contact drains me and leaves me exhausted, but it’s not like that with him.
I feel brighter with him.
He parks outside an old industrial-looking building at the edge of a suburban train station. There are other cars packing the lot already, and most of them are high-end brands, like Mercedes and Aston Martin and the like. Which isn’t what I think of when I imagine the outlying counties collaring Chicago.
“Last chance to turn around,” he says as he opens my door and helps me out of the car.