Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“You’re quite forward, aren’t you?” I ask with a chuckle, appreciative of her forwardness but also humored by it. She reminds me a lot of Octavia, but not enough for me not to wonder what she’d look like with her bright pink maid of honor T-shirt shredded on my bedroom floor.
That in itself is a scary notion, but Jess doesn’t give me the chance to assess it in full.
“Me?” Jess fans her hand across her chest as if there’s no possibility I could be referencing her. “Never.” Her smile could knock any man on his ass. She was beautiful before she smiled. Now she is downright fucking gorgeous. “I just know what I want, and I don’t stop until I get it.”
Reading between the lines, I ask, “And you want me?”
My puffed-out chest deflates a little when she murmurs, “To dance? Yeah.” It doesn’t stay down for long when she adds on with another murmur, “And perhaps some other adult entertainment later. If you’re free. If not, whatever.” She stops, curses herself, then shoots her eyes to my left hand. “You’re not married, are you?” I grin about the hand she drags across her brow when I shake my head. “Phew. I’m down for pretty much anything except married men.” She looks moments from vomiting. “That sounded wrong, so I’ll just stand over there until you’ve made your decision.” She points to a door I assume leads patrons to the beer garden.
Her upfront nature is shocking but also refreshing. You can’t be accused of hiding who you are if you lay all your cards on the table at the start, and the remembrance has me stopping her from leaving before she gets two steps away from me. “Why are you so sure I can do this?”
She twists her fuckable lips in an adorable way before saying with a shrug, “I saw your strut. Throw a couple of hip thrusts into the mix, and you have a Magic Mike routine at the ready.”
Jess looks set to go on a murderous rampage when my laugh has a handful of women from the bachelorette party hovering in close. She only glares at them, but my overinflated ego inserts cat hisses and face-mauling claws into the mix.
When her stare alone has the women retreating with only the quickest flirty wink directed my way, Jess shifts her focus back to me. “Can you do it or not? If you can’t, just say so, and I’ll move on to…” After slinging her eyes at a man I’d guess to be double her age with a receding hairline and rounded stomach, she darts them to a man too trusting of the newspaper on his lap. It isn’t hiding a more sinister act than his obvious appreciation of shrieking karaoke tunes, and Jess knows it. After snapping her eyes back to mine, she brings out the big guns. Her begging eyes. “You need to do this, Caleb. Please. I’ll even get down on my knees if I must.”
A zap roars through my arm when she curls her hand around it to stabilize herself before she attempts to lower to her knees. I don’t know if it is her briefest touch frying my circuits or a wish to let go of the reins for a night, but before her knees get close to the dirty, scuffed floor, I yank her back onto her feet with a painless tug on her arm, then breathe out, “All right. I’ll do it.”
“You’ll do it?”
She sounds as shocked as I feel when I nod without additional consideration. “But on one condition.”
“No touching. I get it,” Jess interrupts like my terms are nowhere near as dire as they are.
My back molars crunch together before I push out, “Two conditions.” I can’t believe I forgot rule one already. I guess I shouldn’t be. I’ve not tussled with a girl like Jess before. She has me all types of conflicted, and we’ve only just met.
If that isn’t a sign for me to run, I don’t know what is, but for some stupid reason, I continue spelling out my terms.
Jess’s head snaps to me so fast, the bones in her neck squeak when I say, “You have to do it with me.”
“What? Nooo…” She shakes her head so fast the smell I was relishing earlier doubles. “I can’t do that. I don’t know how to dance.” She giggles, pffts, and gulps down air like she’s on the brink of a panic attack at the same time before shocking the wind from my lungs. “I also need to keep my clothes on. Long story short… college doesn’t pay for itself, but boobs do.”
I want to hone in on her confession, but before I can, Heidi joins our intimate bartering for two. “Is everything okay?” Unlike Jess, Heidi’s voice is as soft as a whisper and as angelic as a saint.