Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 105306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 527(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 527(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
When our bodies press together and her arms wrap around my waist, something happens to the inside of me. A shock? Tingles?
I shiver despite myself.
Ryann pulls back, shaking her head. “Ugh, nothing.”
Nothing? She felt nothing?
Not a shock, not a tingle?
What the fuck…
“Yeah, nothin’,” I repeat for lack of anything more clever to say. “Now what?”
“Try flirting. Like, what’s your best move?”
“My best move?” I scratch my head. “It’s been a long time. Normally I…” Take a girl back to my room and fuck her? There isn’t much small talk; both she and I know what we want, and the only thing I want from anyone is sex. Even that’s been few and far between, and I haven’t hit on anyone in the bars since…well, shit, I can’t remember.
“Hello?” Ryann is waving her hand. “Seriously, Dallas, it’s not that hard.” She stands up straight, hip hitting the counter behind her. Picks up a glass and holds it, glancing at me and fluttering her long lashes. Bites down on her bottom lip.
“Hey,” she finally says. “My name is Ryann.”
“I know.” Why is she telling me this?
She smacks my arm. “I’m role-playing! Pretend we haven’t met yet.”
“But aren’t we supposed to be practicing flirting?”
“This is flirting. Role-playing is flirting.”
“It is?”
She groans, frustrated. “Use your imagination for once, would you?”
My imagination? Not sure I have one of those. Probably haven’t used it since I was six and playing dragon slayer in our huge yard with my wooden sword.
Fine. If she wants me to use my imagination, I will.
“Hey, sexy, come here often?”
Ryann hesitates. “Out of the gate you call me sexy? Dude. No.”
“Why can’t I call you sexy?”
She sighs, setting the glass on the counter. “First of all, that’s gross.” It is? “Secondly, you don’t know me—you can’t just call me sexy like it’s my name. And asking if I come here often…what are you, Joey from Friends? No.”
Jesus Christ.
No wonder I hate dating—there are all these rules.
“Do it over.”
I squint at her. “Are you always this bossy?”
“No, but you need my help, remember?”
“How could I forget when you keep reminding me?”
Behind us, the doorbell rings. A few moments later, the sound of my brother stomping down the stairs; I hear him open the front door. Hear the feminine voices, the high-pitched greetings that sound forced and fake. Those chicks don’t give a flying fuck about my brother…
“Oh good, an audience.” Ryann smiles. “Okay, now pretend we’ve been out a few times. Try to act like you’re comfortable around me because we’ve been alone.”
“We have been alone.”
“Like alone alone.”
I raise my brows. Alone alone? “Is there a difference?”
When we hear the sound of my brother and Tiffany and whatsherface getting closer, Ryann shifts so she’s standing beside me in the kitchen, hip touching mine.
She turns to face me, face tilting up. Rises up on her toes and presses her nose into the side of my neck. “Mmm, you smell good.”
My dick twitches at the contact.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Flirting,” she coos in a voice I’ve never heard before, fingers tracing the pocket of my T-shirt, making my nipples hard. “Is it working?” She laughs. “If it matters, you do smell really good.”
She doesn’t back away.
“Thanks. I showered.”
Ryann laughs. Runs her hand over my pec muscle. “Wow. Do you work out?”
“Are you being serious?”
She giggles. “I was kidding—obviously you work out, but wow. You’re so strong.”
She sounds like every single girl who has ever touched my body, rubbed my arm, grabbed my bicep, copped a feel with or without my permission.
I can’t decide if she’s fucking with me or not.
Probably, considering she’s told me a million times she’s not interested, isn’t sexually attracted to me, I’m not her type, and we lack chemistry.
Still.
There goes that dick…
At the same moment it twitches in my pants, further confusing the situation I’ve created, Drake is ushering the two twits from next door into the kitchen.
The three of them stop short.
Three sets of eyes gaze at me, move down my body, over to Ryann.
“Oh, hello.” Ryann greets them cordially as if she didn’t know they were descending on us. “How’s it going?”
“Hi.” The newcomers regard her warily from the doorway. I catch the blond one touching my brother at the waist to get his attention back on her and not on Ryann and me…
…as Ryann slides her hand across my back and around my waist, resting her palm on my ribcage.
I glance down at the top of her head.
Sniff it.
Apples and flowers…
Like a limp cock, my arms hang at my sides, unable to move.
Meanwhile, my brother’s eyes volley back and forth from my face—to that hand on my ribs—to my face.
I shrug at him. Dude, don’t ask me what’s going on.
“I’m sorry,” the neighbor girl says. “We haven’t met. What’s your name?”
She doesn’t introduce herself first as she watches Ryann from my brother’s side. I want to flick her away; she’s irritating me already, and they’ve only been in the kitchen two minutes.