Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 107667 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107667 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
“She could have named her after the queen.”
“Anne? My name is so epic. Anne isn’t.”
I snort at that. “Sabine is a beautiful name,” I agree as the ending credits start. I rest my chin in the middle of his chest, and he threads his hand in my hair. “You look tired.”
“I’m slumped,” he agrees, a lazy grin on his face. “Ready to go to bed?”
“Oh, I’m sleeping here?”
His brow perks. “So, you think I’m gonna tell you I love you, make love to you on every surface of this place, and then just want you to leave?”
“I didn’t want to assume you’d want me to stay.”
“Just assume that anything that has to do with you being around me is a yes.” My heart sings at that as I stay trapped in his gaze. “Did you not have a sleepover with Duckfucker?”
I laugh, shaking my head. “You know you call him something different and more degrading each time?” He doesn’t seem the least bit ashamed. “What is a duckfucker?”
He laughs. “Pretty self-explanatory. A guy who can’t get any ass but a duck.”
“I’m dead,” I laugh, snorting, which makes him grin even more.
“You seem pretty alive to me,” he mutters against my lips.
I bite at his lip, and his eyes burn into mine. “Before things get spicy between us—”
“Baby doll, they stay spicy.”
“You’re not wrong, but no, I didn’t stay with him. I’d always make up an excuse for why he couldn’t stay the night.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want to stay with him. I just wanted to come, but hardly even got that.”
“Not surprised.”
I send him a sultry grin. “And with Denis, I had initially thought I wanted to wait till I was married to have sex. But even when that changed, he never really stayed. I think we slept together in a bed a handful of times.”
He gives me a look. “You wanted to wait until marriage to have sex?”
I nod. “Yeah, I did. It was how I was raised. My mom and dad waited. Told me I needed to because a real man would want my brain before my body.”
Dart presses his lips together, trying to hold in his laughter.
“I lived smack-dab in the middle of the Bible Belt. Shut up.”
He swallows his laughter. “What changed?”
“I realized I’m too horny to wait.” He sputters with laughter, and my cheeks warm with a flush. “I was actually the last to give in. Josie started a whole year before me, and then Lindy lost hers. I had intense FOMO, so I called Denis and we did it in his dorm room.”
“Did you regret it?”
I shrug. “No, I was glad because then I learned what I like and don’t like.”
Heat shines in his eyes. “I wish I had known you then.”
I give him a look. “No, I was boring then.”
“Never.”
“No, really,” I promise, lost in his blue eyes. “I was so attached at the hip to Lindy and Josie that I wasn’t confident enough to be me. Josie is a big personality, and Lindy just goes with the flow, so I kinda got lost in the sauce.”
“You said they put you down a lot?”
I blow out a breath, feeling that flush move across my cheeks. “Josie more than Lindy. She did it very passive-aggressively, and I never understood why.” I look away from him, tracing my finger around his nipple. “Lindy never said anything when Josie would do it either. She’d just let her call me fat or tell me that I couldn’t drink because I didn’t need the extra calories. That I had to talk to the guys because they only ever saw me as their friend, not as an option. It wasn’t that bad growing up, but college was rough.”
“I don’t like this chick,” he says, and I scoff, moving to his other nipple.
“I haven’t talked to them in three months.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Josie was trash to me the night we were supposed to be celebrating me, and Lindy said nothing. So I just cut them off.”
“Wow, and you three grew up together?”
“Yeah. Our birthdays are days apart. I was first, Josie second, and then Lindy.”
“I fully support cutting her off. I don’t fool with people who don’t want me or treat me correctly.”
I meet his gaze. “You said your momma isn’t good to you, though.”
“She isn’t,” he says simply. “But I have to deal with her to have Sabine in my life.”
“She’d keep her from you?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t want to find out,” he says softly, twirling my hair in his hand. “I don’t trust her and have tried many times to get them to move here.”
“Why won’t they? Did y’all grow up in Arizona?”
“Not at all. I grew up in Canada, and my mom had Sabine in Buffalo. Close, but not close enough to raise me.”
“I didn’t realize you were Canadian.”
“It comes out sometimes,” he says, pushing my hair off my face. “I say ‘eh’ just as much as you say ‘you all.’”