Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Instead, I am obsessing over the way Elise’s tongue moved with mine. Like we’ve kissed before. Or like we’d been dreaming about it and finally got the chance.
Her mountain air scent is on my palms and I can’t stop myself from pressing both hands to my face and inhaling, the fly of my slacks still snug even though she’s long gone. Growing tighter at the renewed tease of her smell in my nose.
Again, what happened up there?
I feel almost drunk, but my senses are somehow sharper than ever.
Awake.
“I can’t believe she asked me out,” Gabe says, staring after the cab. A forlorn giant. “That beautiful girl asked me out.”
“That’s not a girl, that’s a woman,” Tobias says, wiping the back of his wrist across his mouth. Trying to hoard the taste of her, like me? The possibility irritates me, even as I understand it. Elise was—is—nothing short of extraordinary. Long limbs, that wild tumble of dark hair, eyes that could snap between vulnerable and skeptical in a matter of seconds. Sharp wit that was on display the moment she stepped onto the tram.
Of course all three of us were attracted to her.
But I can’t pretend that’s all it was.
“Dammit,” Gabe says, shoving his hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt. “I should have just said yes.”
Tobias claps a hand down on the construction foreman’s shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up over it, erection boy. She still would have chosen me eventually.”
“She hated your ass,” I say, blithely.
“Yes, but she would have loved my cock.” He smiles at both of us, this man who talks about his dick more than a presidential candidate talks about healthcare. “Actually it sounds like she’s been loving it for years.”
“I don’t watch porn,” Gabe says, still staring up Second Avenue, as if she might turn around and come back. And God, I wish she would. I’m feeling pretty forlorn myself, truth be told. Maybe I’m still trapped in the alternate tram universe, but my gut insists she…belongs back here with the three of us. I feel that way even though I’m jealous of these men for touching her. She’s simply supposed to be here. “I have a stack of magazines I found in my old man’s closet when I was thirteen and I’ve never needed anything else,” Gabe continues.
“That’s tragic as fuck, mate,” Tobias murmurs, a line ticking in his cheek.
Now all three of us are staring at the avenue in heavy silence.
“Do you think there is any way to track her down? Purely out of curiosity, of course.” Tobias asks, finally, his tone slightly more unraveled than before. I can relate. There is this sense of unfinished business that is pulling at my nerve endings and it’s become more intense the longer she’s gone. Is it possible they’re feeling it to the same degree?
“A way to track her down apart from searching for women named Elise living in New York City on social media?” Not that I plan to do that. At all. Surely. And definitely not the second I get home. “No. And tracking her down in any way, shape or form would be inappropriate.”
“Are you always such a boring old rule follower?” Tobias shifts, lets out a breath. “She did mention she works as a reporter.”
I already thought of this, but unlike him, I’m not sharing my strategy for finding her and okay, yeah, apparently I’m willing to be highly unethical when it comes to Elise. Unusual for me, to say the least, but the way she made me feel is unusual, too. The effect of her is still turning over and over in my stomach. “She didn’t mention which news outlet.”
Tobias tilts his head. “No, but ‘reporter’ gives me a valuable Google keyword.”
“Like I said, computer shit is too complicated. I just went ahead and stole her badge,” Gabe says, holding up a lanyard with an ID card dangling on the end. “Her name is Elise Brandeis and she works at the Gotham Times.”
We both gape at the foreman.
“Just when I thought this night couldn’t get any more bizarre,” I mutter, dragging a hand down my face. “You stole her property? Did you think that would earn you any brownie points when you see her again?”
“I didn’t think that far ahead. I rarely do.” At least Gabe has the grace to look slightly sheepish. “Stealing is a product of growing up with a brother and a shit ton of cousins that never left my damn house. You want something, you better take it before it’s gone. I didn’t get this big by letting someone take the last pork chop.”
Tobias is incredulous. In this one instance, we are of the same mind. “Let’s find a nice pub and have a stiff drink, shall we?”
* * *
Gabe
* * *
I face the two men across the table.