Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 147021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 735(@200wpm)___ 588(@250wpm)___ 490(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 735(@200wpm)___ 588(@250wpm)___ 490(@300wpm)
So instead of telling her what I want, where I’d like to see this go, I let her take my shirt off and pull it over her head. She’s swimming in fabric. The sleeves nearly reach her elbows, and the hem ends above her knees.
I arch a brow. “You expect me to leave here shirtless?”
She bites her lip and crosses to her closet. A moment later, she returns with another T-shirt. This one has the team logo on it. “You can put this on.” She hugs it to her chest. “But not now. Before you leave.”
“You want me to wear one of your dad’s shirts?”
She ducks her head, her cheeks flushing. “It’s not my dad’s.”
“You’ve been stealing my shirts.” Fuck. That does something to me, makes me crave the fantasy world where she wears just my shirts every night.
“I always bring them back. After they stop smelling like you.”
I close the distance between us and tip her chin up until her eyes meet mine. “How long have you been doing this?”
Her gaze darts to the side. “A few months.”
“Before or after I found out you were getting off in my bed?”
“Before. And that only happened once—me getting off in your bed, I mean.”
“You’ve been naughty, haven’t you?”
She nods, her grin coy.
I exhale harshly, trying to keep a leash on my hormones. One of these days I’ll break and give her what she’s asking for. I take the shirt from her, swat her ass, and give her a nudge toward the bathroom. “Brush your teeth and get ready for bed, little girl.”
“Okay.” She rushes across the room, pulling the bathroom door closed behind her and turning the lock.
Smart girl.
I move across the room to her dresser. There’s a small bowl with a collection of scrunchies. I pick one up and bring it to my nose. It doesn’t smell like Aurora, but my fingers sure do. I put it back and glance at the small cluster of framed photos. There’s a recent one of her and the girls at a game, and another of Aurora with her mom and Roman. I took the photo last year on her twentieth birthday. The third is a picture of me, her, and Roman at the diner. This one was taken pre-Batdick. I’m hit with a crushing wave of guilt.
It’s about more than hiding shit. I’m in so deep, and these feelings… I have no idea if I’m just an infatuation for her. Finding out how she really feels is like jumping off a cliff and I’m fucking terrified. No clue if we’re on the same page. Hell, I’m still struggling with the page I’m on. If I could give her the stability Roman wants for her, would he be okay with it? Or am I fooling myself into believing the impossible?
Aurora wraps her arms around me from behind, cheek pressed against my back. “Please, please, please, don’t tell me this was a mistake.”
I turn around and cup her face in my hands. She lets me tip it up, but her eyes are closed. “Please, Hollis.” Her voice is a broken whisper.
I would rather have my heart ripped right out of my chest by the woman in front of me than make her cry again. It’s a damning realization. There’s no way out of this without someone I care about getting hurt. But I’d rather it be me than her.
I stroke her cheek and press my lips to hers. “Baby, look at me.”
She opens her eyes, and the fear in them makes my heart feel like it’s been put in a vise.
So I give her as much honesty as I can. “This should feel like a mistake, but it doesn’t. At all.” It feels exactly right. And that scares the shit out of me. I kiss her softly, slowly, but break it before we can get too carried away. “Bedtime, Princess. You have a meeting with your group in less than eight hours, and we both know you’re grouchy when you’ve had less than six hours of sleep.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have given you access to my calendar,” she gripes.
She did that when she started taking care of Postie and Malone. She turns off the lights, except for the lamp on her nightstand. I pull back the sheets, and she climbs in, me following. I set the timer on my watch for an hour, turn off the light, and stretch out on my back. Aurora snuggles into my side, head on my chest, hand resting lightly over my heart.
I curl my fingers around it, in case she gets any ideas.
She kisses the back of my hand, then settles her cheek on my chest. “Hollis?”
“Yes, Princess?”
“Your hand smells like my pussy.”
I laugh. “I know.”
“You’re not going to wash it, are you?”
“No.”
“You’re a little dirty, aren’t you?”
I smile in the dark. “Yeah.”