Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 79360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
I’d been putting off bringing her here.
I didn’t want to know if she hated it. Didn’t want to see the same look on her face that I’d seen on Ellen’s.
But today, after all that bullshit with the burning flags, I realized that I needed to stop being a little bitch and make my move.
I needed to either bring her into my world, or get rid of her, because I was falling fast. I was falling hard. And I didn’t care. I liked where I was about to land.
My eyes strained down to her ass, which filled out those yoga pants spectacularly.
Looking at that view everyday wouldn’t hurt, either.
“Are you coming or what?”
My eyes traveled from her ass to her face, and I grinned.
Shoving my hands into my pockets, I started down the steep hill, catching up to her easily with my long strides.
She huffed at me as I caught up to her and then passed her, and I turned around to laugh at her only to catch her jumping at me.
I caught her, easily, and glared at her.
“You shouldn’t be doing that,” I chastised her.
“Yes, Dad,” she drawled sarcastically.
I moved my hands around to come to a rest under her butt, and squeezed it lightly.
“Ouch,” she snapped her hips forward. “That hurt.”
I turned my face, waited, and was rewarded when she placed her lips to mine.
I took a step down onto a rock that led to the creek, and came to a stop, waiting for her to get down.
She didn’t.
“You getting down?”
She shook her head, shrugged, and wrapped her legs tighter around me. Her arms followed suit, choking off my airway, and her chin came to a rest on my shoulder, her face pressed against mine.
“You have food in your beard,” she pointed out after a while.
I shook my head.
“I can either reach up, letting you go in the process, and remove it. Or you can do it for me, and stay where you are,” I muttered darkly.
She snickered.
“Not funny,” I said. “You ate breakfast with me. How could you not see that I had food in my beard?”
Her giggling was making it really hard to hold onto my scowl.
“I didn’t see it until I was right here,” she admitted, reaching forward and plucking something out of my beard.
She held it out to me to see, and I shook my head.
“Hot sauce,” I said. “Throw it down.”
She pressed her mouth into my neck, and started to snicker once again. “I thought you were saving it for later.”
I pinched her ass, causing her to squirm in my hold.
“If you look over there, that’s the neighboring property,” I jerked my chin in the direction I wanted her to look.
She did, and frowned. “That’s kind of close. What if they build a house or something right there? Then they’ll be able to see into your oasis.”
Hearing her obvious pleasure as she discussed the land made my heart happy.
“I didn’t want you to think that you were a substitute,” I told her bluntly. “That’s why it took me so long to show you. Plus, I wanted to make sure that what we have between us is real.”
She squeezed my neck tighter, cutting off circulation to my head.
“Can’t breathe,” I squeaked out.
She let up, but not before placing a kiss on my quickly reddening forehead first.
Then she patted me on the shoulder and started to squirm.
Understanding she wanted down, I dropped her legs, and she did the rest of the work.
“What’s down here?” she asked, pointing in the direction of a wooded area that I hadn’t gotten a chance to explore yet.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “We have another hour or so before we need to head home and catch a nap before work. If you want, we can walk that way. When we get tired, we’ll turn around.”
She looked skeptically at the sheer drop that led even further down into the woods.
“I’m going to bust my ass, possibly break my arm, and have to skip work because I’ll be in the ER getting a cast fitted onto my arm. As long as you’re okay working with someone you don’t like, I’ll do it.”
I gave her a look that clearly relayed what I thought about her trust in me and held out my hand.
She didn’t even hesitate.
Placing her hand into mine, I helped her down the hill.
And not once did she fall.
Me, on the other hand…yeah, I was a different story.
***
“Oh, my God,” Naomi’s eyes were bright. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I looked over at her for the fifth time in less than an hour.
I was driving the medic, and trying hard not to laugh at the horror that was still pasted on Naomi’s face.
“I’m fine,” I promised her for the final time. “Drop it, okay?”
She bit her lip, but her eyes stayed on my eyebrow where I was now the proud new owner of fifteen stitches.