Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Only… Dr. Herbert was seventy, wore ill-fitting dentures, sported the world’s most unconvincing comb-over, and had known Iris since she was a baby. While the man kneeling at her feet was in his prime, gorgeous, and the world’s biggest movie star. And he currently had a big, assertive hand tucked into the waistband of her jeans—the blunt tips of his fingers intimately close to the top of her bikini panties—while his other fingers undid the stubborn buttons of her jeans.
Iris couldn’t help it—she moaned and covered her face with both hands.
“This is so embarrassing,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands.
He didn’t respond, merely peeled her wet jeans down her generous hips.
Iris squealed in horror when she realized her panties were starting to slide down with the denim.
“Oh, for the love of Jesus, please stop,” she pleaded, and his hands stilled on her hips. Where before they’d gripped the top of her jeans, he now flattened them against her rounded hips and held them there, staring up at her quizzically.
“Think you can manage from here?” he asked after a beat of silence and she blinked, surprised by the question. No. Not surprised by the question, but by the odd tremble in his voice when he asked said question.
“I think so,” she said on a whisper. He looked unconvinced and she nodded assertively. “Yes, I can.”
He pushed lithely to his feet and towered above her once more, too damned close for comfort.
“Uhm, what about…” He made a vague gesture and Iris cocked her head as she tried to decipher what it could mean.
“What about what?”
He took a step back, waved his fingers at her chest before his eyes dropped to where he was pointing. They seemed to snag there and—baffled—Iris followed his gaze down before hastily folding her arms over her very, very hard nipples. She wished she could say the reaction was entirely due to the cold and wet, but… she disguised a little shudder as she remembered the feeling of his fingers sliding down her abdomen. Her frikking stupidly sensitive abdomen, which had always been one of her wind me up and watch me pop erogenous zones.
“Your bra,” he stated after another weird little silence. “Can you—”
“Not wearing one,” she said curtly, then immediately wished the words back. His lips curled into what looked like a full-on smirk and he opened his mouth to say something, but she hijacked his words before he could utter them.
“Don’t say it,” she bit out irritably, and this time he was the one to fold his arms over his chest as he waited for her to continue. Which she did, with a bitter note of self-deprecation in her voice. “I clearly don’t need one, right? That is what you were going to say? Or some nasty variation of the same. Yes?”
He held up his hands in surrender and took another step back.
“Get into that tub before you turn into a papsicle—get it?—papsicle because you’re a blood-sucking leech of a pap?”
She gritted her teeth so hard she felt something in her jaw pop. God, ouch, she wasn’t going to be doing that again anytime soon.
“I’m not a pap,” she snapped at him.
“You should own that shit. Even a rat doesn’t deny that it’s a rat and belongs with other rats.”
“What a dumb analogy. You know, people are always raving about your intellect and emotional intelligence, but I confess, I haven’t seen much—or any—of that on display since arriving here. All I’ve seen is a mean, bitter arsehole of a guy wallowing in his self-inflicted misery.”
This time he was the one who gritted his teeth and Iris wondered if she’d actually hit a nerve.
“If I’m mean and bitter it’s because I have an unwelcome intruder in my space. You’re here on sufferance, lady”—as if she needed the reminder—“so tread fucking lightly. Hurry up and get warmed up so that I can get you out of my hair again.”
He turned away from her and stalked out of the bathroom, leaving the door slightly ajar behind him, which was why she knew he hadn’t gone any further than the attached guest bedroom.
“You’re not going to give me more privacy than that?”
“Nope.” His voice drifted back insouciantly. “You can shut the door, but I have the key, so you can’t lock it.”
Iris eyed the open door. She could see only a sliver of the bedroom and she doubted he was able to see much of anything through that small gap. Besides, she was terrified that if she did shut the door, he would lock it. And she didn’t think she could stand it if he did that. She’d rather take her chances with the door ajar.
Decision made, she shrugged—eager to get into the bath—and clumsily shoved the jeans down her legs, before gingerly removing her tank top. She was sinking into the almost unbearably hot water mere moments later. She nearly added more cold water but she acclimatized quite quickly, despite the uncomfortable pins and needles skittering across her naked flesh.