Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
All I wanted to do was take my grandma to the crafts festival.
Instead, I accidentally save someone’s life
and end up on the front page of the Spruce Press.
That’s not all. The person whose life I save happens to be
my childhood crush Noah Reed.
I’m hardly an example of perfection.
But now they’re organizing a pageant featuring the town’s hottest bachelors
and I’m number one on the list.
But I’m not interested in any other guys.
I’m seeing the bigger picture — with Noah.
And I’d better find a way to tell him soon
before this whole thing gets out of hand.
NOAH
Feelings were never my thing. I don’t understand them.
Even friendships are confusing to me.
The world only makes sense from behind the camera lens,
fitting everything into a perfect frame.
That frame shatters the second Cole Harding becomes my next project.
And he wants me to cover his story.
I can’t make sense out of how I feel.
Nor can I rationalize why the dashing, popular, and "beloved town treasure" Cole
would want to spend so much time around an awkward
and forgettable nobody like me.
I only write the headlines.
I’m not supposed to become one.
✔️ M/M "secret romance"
✔️ Shy recluse & popular guy
✔️ Small-town
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue
Cole
I would never have predicted such a beast lived inside him.
Did I unleash this? Or did the beast always exist?
The once sweet and innocent Noah has taken the lead with no coaxing or pushing at all, kissing me so deeply, I cannot breathe. The same Noah who could barely squeak a syllable out around me without blushing. Noah, the boy who had never so much as kissed another guy, now straddling me and going to town on my mouth.
Then he pulls away and whispers, “Is this alright?”
I stare up at his face. When did his glasses come off? “Are you kidding me?” I breathe back.
“Is that a yes?” he asks.
“Yes. It’s a resounding yes.”
“Good.” When he crashes back down upon my mouth, the kiss intensifies. He grinds his body into mine, flattening me to the seat.
Driver’s seat.
Yes, that’s where we are.
In the driver’s seat of my car, parked in front of his house in the middle of the night where anyone in town, including his sweet and adoring parents who are sleeping peacefully inside said house, can easily find us.
I was not aware of exactly how pent-up I am.
I have wanted this so badly, it’s incalculable.
The kissing inspires him to grind his crotch into mine even harder. I feel him flex within his pants, a notification to inform me of exactly how much he’s enjoying this.
It is becoming increasingly evident how very much our pants are in the way of something we both clearly want.
He pulls away again. “Grab my ass.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “Who are you?”
His fingers slide into my hair and curl into fists, grabbing hold of me with such strength, it’s my body’s instinct to moan.
I move my hands from his hips to his ass, which I’m surprised to report is firmer and more bountiful than I previously thought. Is that the right word? “Bountiful”? Can a perfectly-proportioned plump butt be dignified with the word “bountiful”?
But it isn’t just the size or exquisite hand-filling shape of his tender cheeks that has me losing my mind.
It’s that when I squeeze, his cheeks flex back.
How is anyone supposed to maintain sanity with this amount of tension building up on this overcrowded driver’s seat?
“You don’t have to be so gentle with me,” he whispers.
He says this while I have my hands on his ass, squeezing like I expect to wring milk out of it.
He says this while we grind our crotches together like we’re mining for diamonds.
Then his fingers curl even tighter in my hair, surprising me, as he dives back into my mouth. He humps me even harder now, working me like a piece of meat he’s tenderizing by beating it to its second death on a kitchen counter.
“N … N … Noah …”
My grunts are turning vocal without my permission.
He presses his next kiss against my cheek, then my jaw, then goes for my ear, where he takes a sudden nip. Tingles of ecstasy rocket down my neck from the feel of his teeth on my earlobe. I’m out of control with my moans as he drags his lips down the side of my neck, right where it’s the most tender, right where I have to fight an instinct to squirm against him.
My whole entire body is sensitive.
Charged. Activated. Moving.
Then something hits the stick shift. There’s no telling if it’s his arm or mine, but quite suddenly we’re not parked.
A foot hits the gas—his foot or mine?
And now it’s the car that’s charged, activated, and moving, as it roars and zooms forward.
It’s safe to say this isn’t exactly what I expected our first time alone together to be like. And I can’t with any confidence say what was going through my head when I decided to start making out with my childhood crush in my car while parked in front of his parents’ house—other than how amazing his lips taste.
All I know is that a couple of days ago, we were just two guys minding our own business at the Spruce Spring Crafts Festival.
Two guys with completely unrelated reasons for being there.
Two guys with lonely, weary, broken hearts.
Until an unexpected, life-threatening catastrophe brought the pair of us crashing together—not unlike my vehicle careening into danger right now—and changed the courses of our lives forever.
Chapter 1
Noah
Oh. God. Please. No.
“I’m callin’ ‘em Jiggle-Wiggles!” sings my mother. “All your newspaper coworker friends are gonna love ‘em!”
It’s a box full of bite-sized gelatin blobs in a bunch of colors. Little faces are drawn on the tops of them somehow. Every time the box moves, the faces wiggle and distort. I think they’re trying to smile, but they all look slightly off, just enough to be horrifying.
“Aren’t they just too cute to eat?” she goes on. “And yet you just wanna eat them up anyway? I’m eatin’ them up with my eyes right now! No, no, it’s okay,” she says before I can even open my mouth, “you can take this whole box with you, I insist! Today is a special day, and I’m just sure you’ll win points with your boss.”