Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
I sink into the tub, and it’s everything I want it to be. The heat feels extra gratifying given the coldness of the room, the slight breeze keeps the steam from being stifling, and the bubbles come to the point of nearly overflowing, but not quite.
The only thing missing is music, and I contemplate getting my phone, but decide against it when I realize the music I want to listen to is classical, which makes me think of him.
I stay in the tub until the cooling water starts to take a turn towards uncomfortable. There’s an apple-scented lotion to match the bubbles, which I slather on liberally before wrapping myself in a white towel.
I feel better, I do, but irritatingly, I’m not quite tired yet. Or maybe I just know that when I close my eyes, Thomas’s stern, unsmiling face will be all I see.
Maybe I’ll read.
Real talk, I’m one of those people who always wants to be a reader, but I never quite seem to make time for it until right before bed, which basically means . . . reading puts me to sleep more often than not.
And since I’m hoping sleep will dull the edges of my lingering humiliation, I grab my phone and crawl onto the bed, sitting cross-legged as I scroll through purchased ebooks.
The knock is quiet.
So quiet that I think it’s my imagination at first, but then it comes again, a little louder.
I wrinkle my nose in confusion. Collette?
I look through the peephole and my lips part in surprise. Not Collette. Not even close.
I open the door before thinking it through, and Thomas is clearly taken aback at the sight of me in nothing but a hotel bathrobe.
“What’s up?” I say, crossing one bare foot atop the other to try and contain my nervousness. “Everything okay downstairs? Broken wine glass—oh crap, I forgot my penis gummies!”
He smiles a little at that. “I believe Erika and Ben took the bowl to their room, for reasons I don’t want to know.”
“Ah. So . . .?”
He swallows and glances down. Then back at me. “I didn’t want it to happen like that.”
“The conversation about the kiss?” I say, resting my hand on the door jamb, my head on the hand. “Yeah. I clunked it up, I’m sorry. I was trying to ease my conscience and instead made everything awkward.”
“Not the conversation.”
I shake my head. I don’t understand.
He runs his hand through his hair, then frowns at me. “You drive me fucking nuts, Mac.”
I let out a little laugh, surprisingly not the least bit surprised, because . . . “You drive me nuts too. But I thought for the weekend . . .”
“I don’t mean you annoy me, though you do. I don’t mean that you’re not aggravating and stubborn, because you are. I mean you drive me fucking nuts in that I can’t stop—I’ve never . . .”
He reaches out and lifts my blue streak of hair, studying it for a moment, then winding it around his finger gently, his gaze tracking the movement of his finger.
“I didn’t want to kiss you when I was with Anna. I didn’t want to kiss you when I was your boss.”
“That makes sense,” I say, my voice all low and raspy and hard to hear over the pounding of my heart.
His silver eyes come back to mine, but they’re not cool now, they’re stormy and gray. “I didn’t want it to go like that,” he says, repeating his earlier statement.
Thomas eases closer to me, releasing my hair and instead sliding an arm around me, his hand on my back. “Because I wanted it to go like this.”
His palm flattens over the small of my back, firm and possessive as he presses me to him. Then he dips his head, and his mouth closes over mine.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Friday, October 7
Oh god.
Oh god.
He’s a good kisser. The realization is as jarring as it is welcome, because any hope I’d held that we just needed to get this out of our system, to verify what our first impressions already knew—not a match—goes out the window.
We may not be soulmates, we may not even fully like each other, but . . . we fit.
The way his mouth moves over mine, the way I respond to him—it erases any kiss I’ve had in the past year—the past decade.
He was supposed to be timid! my brain protests feebly.
Timid, Thomas Decker is not. His mouth is firm and sure, expertly teasing mine in searching, pulling kisses, a silent, persistent demand to open to him, to concede.
I do on a soft sigh, as his tongue coaxes mine into a deeper kiss.
My hands lift to his chest, his shoulders, until my arms are linked all the way around his neck, pulling him closer.
My breasts are pressed against his chest, soft to his hard, and I’m short to his tall. We fit. We fit really, really well, and I know he notices too, because he growls low in his throat, a palm moving over my ass, cupping, squeezing, claiming, without apology.