Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“OK, thanks,” she said, and slung her handbag over her shoulder. “Um, pizza would be great.”
“Sure thing, roomie,” I said and took her hand again. “We’ll have pizza, and I’ll tell you all you want to know about the frogs and the baguettes and that fucking escargot. Christ, that’s enough to make anyone puke in their mouth.”
“Romantic,” Riley said drily.
“Anything for you.” It was a joke, but something twanged in my chest, in a spot that’d never so much as shifted in the past.
Man, you’re about to fuck yourself, hard.
Chapter 8
Riley
I sat on the floor in Jax’s living room, my legs tucked underneath my body and the pizza on the coffee table between us. It was good to have that distance, otherwise I wouldn’t have stomached a bite. Jax’s presence equaled thoughts I’d never had before. Obviously, I’d fantasized in my life, I’d touched myself, and had sex and all the rest, but nothing came close to the thoughts I had about him.
And they weren’t only sexual. Which scared the bejesus out of me.
Jax took a bite of his slice and chewed.
I watched him, carefully.
He wasn’t gross or messy. He didn’t have bad table manners, even seated across from me in his jeans and a T-shirt—He’d changed the minute we got back to the apartment.
Does everything about him have to be perfect? Can’t he have a growth or something weird going on? Shit, even a growth wouldn’t put me off this dude.
“Tell me more,” Jax said, after he’d finished the bite. He slipped the pizza slice back onto his plate. “I mean apart from the fact that you like Hawaiian pizza.”
“What’s wrong with Hawaiian?”
“I hear people think putting pineapple on pizza is a punishable offense,” Jax replied. “Personally, I like anchovies.”
“What?!”
“Kidding, kidding,” Jax said. “But your reaction was totally worth it. Come on, gorgeous, tell me about yourself. How does a woman like you wind up broke and sleeping in a studio?”
“I told you the answer to that,” I replied, my pulse ticking up a notch. I picked a piece of pineapple off my slice and gobbled it down. Who cared what other people thought? Pineapple on pizza was legit.
“Did you really?” Jax asked and grabbed a napkin. He dabbed his lips. I pictured licking them instead.
“I, well—it’s complicated.”
“All right,” Jax replied, and shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, Riley. I just figured you’d feel better living under my roof if we knew each other better.”
He glued me to the spot with his stare. It was a challenge.
What, are you scared?
“Well.” I brushed off my fingers and reached for a napkin, but he got there first and held it out to me. I took it, and our hands brushed. Shit, maybe I am scared. This is over the top. It’s too much.
“Well?” He watched me clean my mouth, his look burning with unspoken desire. He shifted and adjusted the crotch of his jeans.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m just a regular person, I guess.”
“Fine, let’s put it this way, then,” Jax said, resting one foot on the floor, knee up. He reclined against the side of his leather sofa, the picture of ease. He gestured with the napkin, continued, “What’s the one thing you regret, in your life?”
“I believe you shouldn’t have regrets in life. I mean, you learn from everything, even mistakes.”
“Hell, girl, don’t give me one of those cheesy cat poster lines. Just answer the question.”
Laughter burst from my lips. At least, he’d called me on the crap. I had plenty of regrets, too many to count at the moment, but I wouldn’t let them hold me back. “Fine,” I managed. “OK, what do I regret?”
“The most,” he said.
“I—wow, that’s not a tough one to pick, but it’s a tough one to talk about. The one thing I regret the most is falling in love.”
Silence spun through the living room, bounced off the silent flat screen TV attached to the wall, and the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked down on Miami’s lights, the sofas, the dark entryway that led out into the hall, and the white carpet beneath us.
Jax’s lips twitched back, his eyes flashed—a micro-expression of anger that disappeared so quickly I swore I’d hallucinated it. “Who did you fall in love with?” He growled it out—yeah, no, he was angry.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“I fell in love with a dick,” I replied. “Not like that. I mean, he was one giant walking cock, and everyone else saw it except for me. Even my best friend who warned me about him way back when. When it first started.”
“Name?” Jax asked.
“Michael.”
Jax swept fingers across his brow, which had reddened in the interim. That wasn’t normal, was it? Did the thought of me with another man actually piss him off? Why? We were nothing. We’d had one night of mind-blowing sex and that was it.