Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 104288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
“Thank you.” I take it from him, watching as he pulls another mug from the cabinet. “I thought you weren’t going to have one.”
He nods at my cup. “Looks too good to pass up.” He presses a button, then curls his hands around the edge of the counter. The veins in his forearms pop as he leans forward and drops his head. “I should get some more work done anyway.”
“Do you ever stop?”
He swivels his head to look at me. “Stop working?”
“Doing. You’re always in motion. Working, cooking, changing poopy underwear.”
“Says the girl who couldn’t stay still long enough for me to clean up a broken mug.”
I sip my cappuccino. “Just one overachiever recognizing another.”
Tuck grabs his from the machine. “Taste okay?”
“Like heaven.”
He goes quiet. I look at him. He looks back. The silence is awkward and weird but also . . . a little sexy?
I swallow. “Are you always such a great conversationalist? Or only with me?”
He’s not grinning, but he’s not glowering, either. Feels like a win, albeit a small one. “Not all of us can be rays of fucking sunshine.”
“What’s wrong with fucking sunshine?”
“Nothing’s wrong with fucking sunshine.” He glances at the windows that line the far side of the room. “I’m more of a nighttime kind of guy.”
I lean my hip into the counter. “No.”
His lips twitch. “Did the tattoos give me away?”
“And the growling. And the death stare you give everyone and everything. Well, except Katie.”
“I’m waiting for her teen years to unleash my death stare. Figure it’ll be more effective that way.”
My heart skids inside my chest. Did Tuck just make a joke? With me?
Tuck is not an easy guy to talk to. But not only am I talking to him and he’s talking back, he’s actually kidding around with me. Having fun.
The flow of conversation is easy, effortless. Like we’ve been at this for weeks instead of hours.
It takes me totally off guard. So does the fact that the exhaustion I felt twenty minutes ago is gone, replaced by this fizzy energy that rises up inside me. I feel like a bottle of champagne that’s just been uncorked, bubbles rushing to the top of the bottle to greet the air.
“You’re a nighttime guy.” I nod at the windows. “No wonder you ended up on Bald Head. The stars out here are insane. I’ve never seen so many.”
Tuck’s looking at the windows again, eyes narrowed as he carefully sips his piping-hot drink. “To be honest, I haven’t seen ’em in years. A shame, I know. But Katie goes down so early. Gets up early too. If I’m not working when the stars come out, I’m passed the fuck out.”
I hesitate for half a heartbeat. I really should go back and study. But I really, really don’t want to. And the stars are exceptionally pretty.
“Then let’s go outside and see them now.” I lift a shoulder. “Why not? It’s a little muggy, but the heat’s not too bad.”
“I need to work.”
“I need to study. But I don’t want to, so please indulge in some procrastination with me so I feel less awful about it.”
“You really feel awful about taking a break?”
Our eyes meet. “You don’t?”
A beat of . . . something passes between us. Understanding? Whatever it is, it makes my breath catch. It also intensifies the pressure building between my thighs.
I want to ask him to please put on a shirt.
I also want him to walk around without one all the time.
Fully expecting Tuck to turn me down, I gird myself for disappointment. Embarrassment too. But then he says, “Five minutes.”
My heart is somewhere in my throat now. “I can do five minutes.”
I follow Tuck to the sliding doors that lead to the second-story deck off the family room. He opens a door, the muscles in his back and shoulders bunching against his tanned skin as he moves. My mouth goes dry.
Tuck catches me staring. The corner of his mouth quirks upward. He motions me through the door. “After you.”
Averting my eyes, I scurry outside, noticing a patch of puckered skin on Tuck’s thigh as I keep my gaze close to the ground. Battle wound? I feel like this man has stories. Ones he’ll probably never share with me. Makes me feel young and a little stupid. I’ve barely started living my life, but Tuck’s clearly been through it.
Looking up, the breath immediately leaves my lungs at the view that greets me: the most enormous sky I’ve ever seen, lit up with a million tiny pinpricks of sparkling light. The stars are so bright they illuminate the velvet sky, making the navy blue burn to cerulean, deep brown, even light purple.
It’s almost beautiful enough to distract me from the sound of Tuck sliding the door shut behind him as he steps onto the deck.
We were alone in the kitchen. But there’s something more intimate—more dangerous—about being alone with him out here. Nothing but stars and the distant sigh of the ocean surrounding us.