Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 38908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 195(@200wpm)___ 156(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 195(@200wpm)___ 156(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
“I don’t want to say. You’ll laugh.”
“I won’t laugh.” She gave him a look, and he held his hands up in surrender. He wouldn’t laugh, not even a little bit. “I promise.”
“Okay, fine. If you do though, you’re not having any more of my coffee.”
“Babe, that’s not a problem.”
She flinched away from him, and Max gritted his teeth. Aria hated it when he used terms like “babe,” “sweetheart,” “honey,” “darling”; any kind of words that were endearments. He hated how she responded to them. With Aria, he was always screwing up, and he didn’t know how to stop it.
“I’ve joined a dating site,” she said.
Max didn’t speak for several seconds. “A dating site? The kind where you meet your forever person?”
She giggled. “You make it sound like I’m looking for a dog.”
“Are you?”
“No. Not a dog. I’m twenty-five years old now, and I’d really like to start dating. I’ve got a great job, and a place of my own. June was the one who suggested I should give it a try.”
“Of course she did.” He was going to have to have a few words with June about this. Dating websites were bad news, weren’t they? They were in the news with how men and women ended up dead because of them.
There’s no way he could let Aria go on a date.
“You sure you don’t want to look a little closer to home? There are lots of eligible guys here who’d love to take you out.” He was one of them. If it would help her to forgive him, he’d gladly take her on a date.
Aria snorted. “Not happening. With the dating site I can find people who are not in this town and live maybe a short drive away.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to date someone from this town? I can say we’re pretty awesome.” He wanted to cringe at his own words, especially as their history already dictated that he wasn’t a good suggestion.
Aria stared at him and shook her head. “No thanks.”
“Look, not all the guys are like me, okay.”
“I know they’re not all like you, but I went to school with a selection. Others are married. The others will never get married and are players, and then you’ve got the ones that are gay. Forgive me for this, but no. I want someone I don’t know who he went with in high school, or anything else like that. Can’t you give me this?”
He wanted to tell her no and to yell at her for being so stupid, but again, the guilt filled him because of his past actions, and it pissed him off.
“Of course.”
She smiled, and as she did, it really made his heart race. He’d never noticed her smile in high school, and if he had, she’d have belonged to him, no question about it. The moment she did, her eyes held this sparkle, and it lit up her whole face. She was breathtaking.
“Thank you.” She sipped at her coffee, and he wanted to make her smile again.
Tapping his fingers against his thigh, he tried to think of what else to say to help this along, but again, nothing.
He couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
All too soon, his morning walk came to an end as June’s bakery came into view. Over the road held Trey’s tattoo parlor where he worked when time was slow on the construction side of his life.
No matter what he did, he wanted to work with his hands. Rubbing the back of his head as they came to the store, he watched as Aria bent over. Her jacket lifted up, and he got a show of her curvy rear. So round, so sexy, and he’d give anything to have it nestled against his pelvis as he fucked her hard.
He didn’t know when he wanted to start fucking her, but he had, and now, it was driving him crazy.
She was on a dating site.
How was he going to make sure she was making the right decision?
“Would you like me to make you a coffee? I know my taste is a little on the extreme.”
“I’d love one.” He’d already made an agreement with himself that he wouldn’t turn her down or away when she asked him for something. It was the start, he hoped, for her to trust him.
****
“What’s wrong?” June asked. “You look a little lost there, sweetie.”
Aria pulled out of her thoughts as she looked down at the guy who’d been texting her on and off for the past couple of hours. She hadn’t expected to get a hit on the dating website so soon, but now that she had, she was really nervous.
David Wild wanted to meet up for drinks tonight, but thinking about going and meeting a total stranger, her nerves were back. Max walking her to work didn’t help matters either. She struggled to think and to process properly.