Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 125866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 629(@200wpm)___ 503(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 629(@200wpm)___ 503(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
“Always has been,” he said, his voice almost too low for me to hear.
He looked at me, and I tore my gaze away, turning to face the mirror, instead.
We all agreed the brown dress was an option, but there was no way Larissa was letting me get out of this hellish ordeal that easy. She wanted to see me in all the dresses she’d plucked off the racks, and I had no choice but to oblige.
In the end, it came down to three: the brown one I’d first tried on, a form-hugging black number, and a frosty blue one that draped like starlight down to the ground and had a slit so high it made my cheeks flush the first time I stepped out in it.
But it also made me feel beautiful.
I put them all on again, modeling them one at a time with full accessories for Larissa and Kyle. When I walked out in the blue one for the second time after the first two were seen again, Larissa’s eyes glistened and she clasped her hands under her chin.
“Oh, Madelyn,” she said.
Kyle stood, hastily smoothing a hand over his stomach like he was wearing a suit and not a t-shirt. He was quiet as his eyes washed over me, his hands finding his pockets like he didn’t know what else to do with them.
Like if he didn’t tuck them away, he might reach for me, instead.
I felt the heat from his gaze like a roaring bonfire, and by the time his eyes reconnected with mine, my neck was flushed a bright pink.
He swallowed, shaking his head. “Goddamn, Mads.”
Larissa’s eyes bulged, her head snapping toward him like she couldn’t believe that was his response. She’d expected him to call me beautiful, maybe. Or gorgeous.
But his response was so him that I couldn’t help but laugh, covering my face with my hands.
When I peeked through them, I saw him grinning.
I tried not to overanalyze the way my heart was fluttering when I disappeared inside the dressing room again, ready to get the hell out of this dress and this store. But when I went to unzip the back, the zipper wouldn’t budge.
I cursed, fussing with it until I realized I’d lodged it in part of the delicate blue fabric.
That made me curse again, and I maneuvered so I could watch myself in the mirror as I tried to undo my mistake. When my shoulders started aching from the awkward angle, I sighed, deciding my pride wasn’t worth tearing a dress that was likely more expensive than my mortgage.
I opened the dressing room door just a crack, peeking out, and Kyle’s gaze snapped from his phone up to me.
“Where’s Larissa?”
“She ran up to the front to help another customer,” he explained. “I told her we’d bring all this to the counter.” He frowned when I muttered an expletive under my breath. “What’s wrong?”
“Zipper’s stuck.”
At that, Kyle beamed, standing and tucking his phone away before spreading his arms wide like he was God’s gift to the world. “My specialty.”
I glared at him. “I’ll wait.”
“Come on,” he said on a hearty chuckle. “I’ve got you.”
When I didn’t respond, he walked closer, lowering his voice.
“You really want to stay stuck in that dress for who knows how long to wait for her to come check on us? I’m right here,” he reminded me, as if forgetting that fact was possible with him towering over me and smelling like a mixture of teak, turf, and the woods after a rainstorm. “Let me help.”
I bit my lip, craning my neck out a little farther to search for Larissa. When I didn’t see her, I looked back up at Kyle, who arched a brow.
I groaned. “Fine.”
I didn’t watch his victorious smile for longer than a second before I opened the door wider and let him step inside. I’d intended to keep that door open, but when I turned and Kyle walked up behind me, the door closed of its own accord, no doorstop propping the weighted thing open.
It shut with the quiet click of the lock, but it might as well have been a gun blast for how my ears rang.
“I’m glad you picked this one,” Kyle said, his voice drowned out by how my heart was beating in my ears. He reached for the zipper, one hand holding the fabric taut as the other maneuvered the contraption. “The blue is…”
He didn’t finish that sentence, just shook his head, and I watched him in the plethora of mirrors all around us. His eyes were fixed on where his hands worked, and my attention was fixed on where I felt the slightest brush of his skin against the back of my neck.
Every second dragged with him so close behind me, my body buzzing and all too aware of the subtle heat rolling off him. When he finally got the fabric free, the zipper lurched down an inch, and I sucked in a breath that made us both freeze in place.