Series: Fever Falls Series by Riley Hart
Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85157 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85157 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“Who said anything about sex, hmmm?” Linc cocked a blond brow at me. “I was only commenting on a pretty face…and body…good God that body. It’s better than yours.”
That’s what made me turn around in my seat. Not that I thought I had the hottest body around or anything, but it was pretty good. The second I did, my heart dropped to my stomach…nope, not there…it kept going, landing somewhere close to my feet.
My head suddenly throbbed. Jerking, I tried to whip around, duck down in my seat so he couldn’t see me, but apparently my bad karma had returned because I saw the recognition in his blue eyes as I turned away from him.
“Beau? Holy shit, Beau Campbell,” Ash nearly shouted as he stalked forward.
Linc’s eyes went wide, obviously not realizing who it was. Linc hadn’t gone to high school in Fever Falls, and though he’d of course heard about the football player who’d gone pro—because who the fuck hadn’t heard of Ashton Carmichael—he wasn’t into the sport and likely didn’t put two and two together.
The moment Ash stepped up to the table, his muscular thighs were right fucking in front of me, enclosed in tight blue jeans…and they were sexy thighs. Not something I’d ever paid much attention to, but then these were Ash’s thighs, and I had no doubt he was as charismatic as he’d always been.
But it wasn’t nice to stare, was it? Especially not with straight football players who kissed you once and then never spoke to you again. Nope, not fair at all.
I knew I had to do something, knew I had to look up, but I couldn’t quite make myself do it.
“Beau?” Ash asked, probably wondering if I’d lost my mind since he saw me last.
“Yes, Beau?” Linc added, because he was Lincoln and of course he could read me like a book.
As my head slowly angled upward, my eyes scanned his body. Ashton Carmichael… Ash was fucking there, back in Fever Falls. The second I reached his face, the corners of his mouth tilted up into a sexy, cocky smile, and I was taken back to that night, to the kiss, the feel of Ash’s lips against mine, the feel of a man’s lips against my own. He’d been both my nemesis—the man who would be able to live my dream—and my sexual awakening. And fuck, he was even more gorgeous than he had been ten years before. Somehow his eyes were bluer, this piercing dagger that went right through me. His jaw was squarer, his dark scruff sexier…well, he hadn’t even had scruff back then, but he had it now. His hair looked a little lighter, but still very brown. His lips were sort of pouty, which he played to his advantage, or at least he had back then.
Wait. Had someone asked me a question? I couldn’t remember.
“Hi, I’m Lincoln, Beau’s very available and flexible friend. He seems to have lost his voice at the moment. You are…” Linc’s words snapped me out of whatever trance Ash had put me into.
“Knock it off, Linc,” I said just as Ash replied, “You don’t know who I am?”
I rolled my eyes. Jesus, he hadn’t changed a bit. “Oh, of course, because everyone has to know who Ashton Carmichael is.”
“Obviously,” Ash answered with a cocky grin that was just an older, sexier version of the one he’d had when we were teens.
“Wait…you’re the football guy?” Linc asked, and I swear Ash lit up like someone stuffed the sun up his ass.
He held out his hand, and Lincoln took it. “Ashton Carmichael, nice to meet you.” Lincoln pretended to swoon, and Ash frowned but recovered quickly. “Christ, it’s been a long time, Beau. I think the last time I saw you was the night of our graduation party. Shit, I was drunk as hell that night.”
Because he just had to throw that in so I was reminded that my sexual awakening had been his drunken mistake. I opened my mouth to reply but didn’t get the chance before Ash was sitting down in the booth, making me automatically have to scoot over.
“Yes, please. Make yourself at home,” I told him.
“There’s the Cranky Campbell I remember.”
Ash winked.
Lincoln laughed.
I groaned. How was this my life? I couldn’t believe Ash was back. But then the headlines I’d obsessively read came back to me…the partying, the women, the orgy…not getting signed…Ash taking an early retirement.
A tornado formed in my chest, a mixture of sympathy and anger—hurting for him having lost everything; pissed that he threw it all away. Fuck, I would have done anything for the opportunities Ash had.
“Do you mind if I steal that?” Lincoln asked. “The guys will love it. Cranky Campbell fits him so well.”
“Fuck you very much.” I threw a tater tot at my ex-friend.
“Feel free,” Ash told him, picking a tot off my plate as though it hadn’t been ten years since I saw or spoke to him. What the hell was that?