Total pages in book: 199
Estimated words: 200280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1001(@200wpm)___ 801(@250wpm)___ 668(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1001(@200wpm)___ 801(@250wpm)___ 668(@300wpm)
Then, “Explain.”
Chapter Sixteen
Explain.
It’s one word and quite simple to understand.
Even so it takes me a little bit to gather myself and get things straight in my head. Quite possibly because I was so engrossed in the impromptu — also inadvisable — kiss, so drugged and so far gone, that now I have to carefully bring myself out of it all and come back to reality.
And reality is made of thorns and thunder, isn’t it?
Not candies and cream.
So first, I sit up and straighten my dress. Which actually takes some work because the neck is all twisted up and pulled down, baring one of my shoulders. How he managed to do that I don’t know, because it’s a snug dress with very little give without undoing the zipper.
Then I work on the hem that’s shoved all the way to the tops of my thighs, even giving a peek of my black panties. Again, how he managed to do that when my hem’s as tight as my bust, I don’t know. But I pull it down hastily and I’m about to fold my thighs so I can sit on them and look respectful when a growl comes from across the room.
“More.”
He’s standing all the way at the opposite wall.
Somewhere in the last however many seconds he moved away from the foot of my bed to the furthest wall from it. Like he needed some distance from me.
Which is just as well.
Because now that I’m slowly coming out of the fog, I decide it’s for the best.
We both need some distance from each other.
“More what?” I ask, shifting under his scrutiny.
He stares at my face a second before flickering his eyes lower and staring at my thighs. “Your dress.” That muscle on his cheek jumps again. “Pull it down more.”
I look down at my lap before I look back up at him. “Why?”
“Because it’s fucking with my head.”
I look down at my dress again and again honestly, I can’t see why. But I’m not going to argue with him about this and so I tell him the truth. “It’s… I can’t.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because it won’t stretch any more,” I explain. “This is it.”
His nostrils flare in displeasure. “Then fucking cover yourself up with something.”
“I —”
“Don’t want your wet fucking panties in my fucking face when I’m trying to be a saint here.”
My heart skips a beat and I realize he’s right.
They are wet.
And all sticky.
So I just do as he says and cover my thighs with a pillow. Which is when I notice that he exhales, some of the tautness leaving his frame.
Then, “Now, what the fuck did you mean by no condoms?”
I play with the tassels on the edge of my pillow as I reply, “It means exactly what it sounds like. No condoms.”
I’m choosing a nonchalant tone because I think that’s the best way to go.
To appear as casual as possible.
So he has no clue as to what’s really going on inside of me.
So he has no clue about my secret revenge plan.
“And why is that?” he asks, his eyes sharp and pinned on me.
“Because,” I say and raise my chin, “I don’t want anything between us when we do it for the first time.”
He waits a few seconds to answer.
And his answer is a repetition of my own words. “When we do it.”
“Yes.” I nod as calmly and as regally as possible.
“For the first time.”
“Yup.”
This time he doesn’t say anything. He simply chooses to stare at me with an expressionless face and an intense stare.
So I’m compelled to add, “By that I mean sex.”
Again he keeps silent.
And again I keep going, “With each other.” Then, “Just so there’s no confusion.”
Finally he says, or more like murmurs, “That’s where we were headed, were we?” A second later he adds, “And by that I mean sex. Just so there’s no confusion.”
I blush.
But I tell myself to be strong and reply, “Well, yeah. We were kissing.”
“So?”
“So where does kissing lead, Ledger?”
“I don’t know, you tell me, Firefly.”
I give him a look. “It leads to doing it, okay? It leads to sex.”
“It leads to doing it when both people involved can at least call it what it is: fucking.”
I clench my teeth at his condescension.
Gosh, one of these days I’m going to learn to not blush when we’re talking about stuff like this.
“Fine, whatever. Fucking. Kissing leads to fucking.”
“Well congratulations, you said the F word.”
“Why, thank you,” I shoot back. “And I thought for someone as sophisticated as you, you’d know that.”
“I do. Although I had no clue that you knew that.”
“You’re such a —"
“So was this your agenda then? For tonight’s business meeting. Fucking.”
I blush some more but reply, “Look, I realize that this is… sudden. And —”
“That’s one way to put it.”
I exhale a sharp breath at his interruption. “And that we should’ve talked about this. But as I said, you were all angry back there and —”