Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55738 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55738 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
She’s wearing a baggy sweater and loose-fitting jeans like she’s trying to hide her figure, but there’s nothing she can wear to hide it from me. My manhood starts to tingle as my feet carry me toward her. Her hair is tied up messily, giving her an artistic, sexy look.
She’s so involved in her work that she doesn’t notice me until I’m almost right on top of her. Well, close to her. Not on top in the way I’d like. She gasps, jerking her paintbrush, causing paint to splatter over my shirt.
“Oh my God.” She leaps to her feet, drops the brush, and rushes over to me. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t expect…”
She’s got her hand on my shirt, rubbing at the paint with her bare hand. It pushes through the fabric, her hand and palm burning against my skin. It’s the first time we’ve touched. I’m almost howling. It’s like our bodies are talking to each other.
She seems to realize what she’s doing, laughs cutely, and steps back. “Uh, sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” I growl, almost adding, You never have to apologize to me. My chest is burning from her touch. My manhood is getting hard, my base throbbing as I imagine her warm palm wrapped around it. “What are you working on?”
She bites her lip and looks at the ground. Strands of her brown hair have come loose. She looks so cozy and small in the baggy sweater. A flush creeps down her neck. She must feel awkward talking to the father of the man who gave her such a bad date.
“A school project. College project.”
I wonder if she’s correcting herself because she doesn’t want to seem too young. That gets my mind racing into steamy possibilities. Is there a reason she doesn’t want me to see her as too young? Is she interested?
“Can I take a look?” I ask.
She swallows, nods, then kneels. For a crazy moment, I think she’s going to bring those gorgeously nervous lips to my manhood, start kissing, stroking…
Then she picks up the brush she dropped and gestures at the canvas. “Uh, sure, but it’s not done yet. There’s something very interesting about how the light plays with this gym.”
I walk around the canvas to get a proper look at it. She’s captured it perfectly. No, it’s more than that. The gym is just a stone structure in the middle of some greenery and a parking lot, with the cityscape in the background. It’s so familiar to me, but she’s made it look new.
“So, your verdict?” she asks. When I tell her what I was thinking, she smiles in the most captivating, adorable way. It makes me want to lean down, kiss, and hold her. “That’s exactly what I was going for. Familiar but unfamiliar. That’s basically what this whole gym project is about. Taking an everyday space and trying to bring out its special qualities. There are so many special things in places people rarely look.”
I stare hard at her. “I agree,” I say huskily.
She bites her lip again and glances at the ground. I almost reach forward, touch her chin, and guide her gaze back to me.
“Have you painted inside, too?” I ask.
“Yeah. My friend Lexi. I’m not sure if you know her.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Dyed hair? She’s been coming here for almost ten years, I think.”
I think a moment longer. “Yeah, I think I know who you mean.”
“I’ve been painting her,” I say. “Or moments. Snippets. It’s an interesting project.”
“It looks like you’re doing a great job,” I tell her.
“Thank you, Mr. Jacobson.”
“Fletcher,” I say fiercely, hating the idea of us being formal with each other.
She licks her lips as if trying to tempt me, but there’s nothing staged or forced about the gesture. “That’s an interesting name.”
“My dad was a bow hunter,” I say. “He’d make his own arrows. It’s called fletching, hence the name.” It’s far easier to talk to her than with anybody else, including my own family. I wonder what that says about me. Or her. “I guess he wanted me to follow in his footsteps.”
She smiles up at me. We’re standing so close. It would be the most natural thing in the world to reach down and loop my arms around her waist, pull her right up against me, and let the intimacy explode between us. “But you didn’t?”
“In my old line of work, a bow wouldn’t have done much good,” I say.
“You were in the Army, right?” she asks. “Lexi mentioned something…”
“More or less,” I tell her.
She laughs softly. “What does that mean?”
I grin. It feels so easy with her. For a second, I can forget that Loki’s out there somewhere without me. “I was in Special Forces. My job was to sneak around in places I wasn’t supposed to be, doing things I wasn’t supposed to be doing.”