Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
A very, very special one.
And one that hadn’t wanted me and still didn’t. He’d made that real clear being gone for so long. I understood.
Alex reached forward and grazed the ends of my hair with his fingertips. “Your hair looks nice like this. Pretty.”
The noise that came out of my throat was unholy.
He pinched some of the strands and spread his legs a little wider as he settled that heavy gaze on me, snapping his hips and the stool forward, trapping my knees between his. “But I liked your hair the way it was before too.” He rubbed those strands between his fingers a little more as he watched me so, so closely.
My skin buzzed with his energy.
Alex’s head tilted to the side as he gave my ends a tiny tug, and I didn’t think I imagined the way one corner of his mouth went up.
It took me two damn tries, but I finally got it out. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” he replied just as Selene and Hiromi parted through the crowd, on their way back.
But my stomach… my stomach disagreed. It didn’t feel like nothing.
“Thanks for driving me home—I mean back to your home,” I told Alex later on, my throat a little raw from basically yelling, but I was in a good mood. We’d hung out for another hour, with Selene and Hiromi telling me funny stories about the family that had me wiping at my eyes. It was usually what we did every time we went out; they told me stories and gossip.
I loved learning everybody’s business, and they had no filters.
All the while, Alex sat there, listening and occasionally smirking his way through Selene and Hiromi’s versions of their family’s shenanigans. My head hurt a little, and part of it was from laughing so hard. The other part was because I’d drank more than I should have. More than I would have if he hadn’t shown up. Eventually, once the bar got even more crowded, Selene and Hiromi suggested we go to another one, a quieter one, but I hadn’t wanted to go, and when Alex said he didn’t either, it only made sense to catch a ride with him since I hadn’t driven. I’d tried my best not to drive Alex’s car unless I absolutely had to, and that’d only been a handful of times. I’d driven around his grandmother’s Mercedes and clutched the shit out of the wheel each time she asked me to chauffeur her around. The rest of the time, Selene or Hiromi always picked me up.
I caught his glance as we walked from the car to the big, dark house. The ride back had been quiet. I knew what I was thinking about but had no idea what was on his mind. Melting ice caps. The islands of trash in the ocean. Who knew?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him glance over. “It is home,” he said, sounding so solemn.
I pinched my lips and kept my face even. I had to keep everything in perspective. Keep my cool. Give him his space. Don’t ask anything. Don’t expect anything. Those were some of my new rules. Try not to be scared was my favorite one.
He unlocked the door and pushed it open, turning that body just enough for me to squeeze through first. I kept my gaze forward as I stopped to pull off my newish boots as he locked the door. I snatched them up and met his gaze, giving him a little smile. “I’m going to go shower off the beer Selene spilled on me.”
“Yeah, you stink like it.”
There he was.
I smiled just a little, more than a bit relieved he was back, at least for a while. I really had missed him. Even though I had made myself at home while he’d been gone, having him around just felt… right.
And that’s why I needed to give him his space and keep everything in check.
Alex tipped his chin up. “Go shower, Cookie,” he told me as he set his keys and wallet on the console table by the front door, giving me his muscular back.
I turned and ran up the steps as fast as I could. I wasn’t going to be sad. We were together because of some fluke of fate. Because I had an ancestor who had had an ancestor that had been special. His grandma had dropped him into my life—literally—but life did have choices. And you couldn’t control them all; I refused to believe that.
We wanted different things. He hadn’t wanted to meet me; he hadn’t wanted someone to tell him what to do. I knew him well enough at this point to understand how much he would like someone telling him what to do. Which was not at all. And I wanted… I wanted fucking everything. I wanted to live my life, I wanted sex, but I wanted love more. It was why I’d waited. Why I hadn’t settled for just anyone.