Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
My feet moved, but the rest of me didn’t.
Did he just say his bed was big enough for both of us?
And there was a bat in here?
Or that he could take the floor in his room?
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, pal,” I whispered. “I don’t even know your middle name.”
His hand tensed in mine, and he glanced over his shoulder. “John.”
He wasn’t trying to… get me to go up there to have sex with him, was he? I didn’t think so—as in really didn’t think so but…. “Not that I wouldn’t mind having sex with you eventually—”
Rhodes made this terrible choking sound in his throat.
“—but I barely learned your middle name, and I don’t know what you wanted to be when you were growing up, and this is going really fast if you want to do more than just sleep in the same bed together,” I rambled out in a rush, so I had no clue what the hell I was even saying.
Apparently, he barely understood it too because he made another choking sound—not as aggressive—and just looked at me for a long second. “Sometimes I think I know exactly what you’re going to say… and then the exact opposite comes out of your mouth,” he whispered back.
Was he laughing?
“No sex, Buddy, just sleep. I’m too tired, and I do know your middle name, but I’m not real big on rushing things, Valeria,” he finally got out. Definitely laughing and trying not to. “But I wanted to be a biologist. It took me a long time, but I got my degree in it. I’m using it better now than I’d dreamed of back then.” He took a deep breath. “What did you want to be?”
“A doctor, but I couldn’t even get through dissecting a frog in high school without throwing up.”
His chuckle sounded rusty.
And I liked it.
“Okay,” I agreed, “just sleep.”
He shook his head and, after a minute, started the journey again. My feet hit the stairs one after another, and even though I was mostly thinking about what it would be like to have sex with him, I still glanced up at the ceiling to make sure there was no bat there. There wasn’t.
Not yet at least.
Were we really going to sleep in the same bed? Or was I going to tell him I could sleep on the floor? Or was he going to sleep on the floor?
I was way too exhausted to think this over so closely. It didn’t help that I had no idea what went on in the dating game anymore. My friends weren’t good examples of real-life dating because their lives were so complicated.
But my thoughts just circled back around to one thing: sex with Rhodes.
I mean, I was all for it eventually. It scared me, made me nervous too.
I’d seen him without a shirt on. He was all brawny and big, and I’d bet he wasn’t lazy at all. I bet he liked being on top.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, I needed not to think about that.
“Rhodes,” I whispered.
“Hmm?”
“In the same bed?”
“I’d rather not sleep on the floor, angel, but I will if you’re not good with it.”
I blinked, and my heart thumped in response.
“Don’t think you want to either. There might be mice running around still. They are nocturnal.”
I was still taking turns looking up at the ceiling and down at the floor when he led us into his bedroom. He didn’t flip on the light, but the moon through his window was huge and bright, illuminating everything with just the right amount to not wake me up too much more than talking about mice and bats had.
Fuck. I was relieved when he closed the door behind him and moved toward the bed, still holding my hand. He pulled the bedspread aside and murmured, “Take this side.”
I did, plopping down on the edge and watching him as he unbuttoned his shirt. When he was almost done, he jerked it out from where it had been stuffed into his pants, finished with the buttons, and shrugged it off. Right in front of me.
I sat there. My mouth went a little dry at the way his undershirt clung to the thick muscles of his upper body. “Are you showering?” I asked without even meaning to.
“Too tired,” he replied softly, folding the shirt and setting it into a hamper I hadn’t spotted in the corner of his room. I wanted to look around… but he was stripping.
Rhodes went for his pants then, undoing the tab, then the zipper, and pulling it down…
That’s when I glanced up to meet his eyes. He was looking right at me. Busted. I smiled just as he started tugging his pants down his long legs.
“Did you find the hunters?” I asked, hoping my throat sounded husky from sleep and not for another reason.
I was weak and I flicked my gaze down.