Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
“No.” Ian grabbed her wrist. “The room at the end of the hallway. Wait there. I’ll get your bag.”
“Don’t make me cut your hand off, Coop.”
“With what? You have a knife shoved up your ass?”
“He’s seen me naked.”
Ian’s jaw clenched, but at the same time something vulnerable flashed in his eyes—a pleading of some sort.
“He’s seen me naked …” Jersey repeated in a softer tone.
Keeping his hand on her wrist, he slowly leaned down. “Can he not…” Ian whispered over her lips “…see you now? Can you be for my eyes only?”
Jersey blinked several times, feeling tension in her jaw too. But as he eased his grip on her wrist, she released the doorknob.
“Thank you,” he breathed into her mouth a second before kissing her.
She kissed him back, wrapping her arms around his neck, letting him slide his arms around her naked body, letting him lift her up, guiding her legs around his waist. Ian kissed her all the way to the bedroom at the end of the hallway. He closed the door behind them. And he kissed her more, taking slow steps toward the king-sized bed next to the glass doors to a private balcony.
“You made fun …” she fought for a full breath as he took it away with his lips beneath her ear “…of me in the pantry.”
His mouth paused for a moment and turned up into a smile. “I didn’t.” He lowered her to the bed and kissed his way down her throat as she arched into him.
“You tried to drown me.” She fisted the sheets beneath her and let her heavy eyelids close.
Again, he paused at the swell of her breasts, grinning again. “I didn’t.” Making his way back to her lips, he rested his forearms beside her head. “Jersey?”
She blinked her eyes open.
“When I realized you couldn’t swim … your heart didn’t stop beating.” He closed his eyes and released a slow breath through his nose. “But mine did.”
“Coop …”
“I’m a terrible person.”
“You are.” She grinned, and it brought a little light to him as well. “But so am I. So let’s do what terrible people do.”
Ian’s gaze swept along her face. Then he smiled and stretched his arm to the bedside table, pulling out a strip of condoms and tossing them on the bed before losing his underwear and taking. All. The. Kisses.
“It’s not terrible.” Jersey smiled as she and Ian rested on their sides facing each other—naked, sleepy, and satisfied. “I mean, we’re terrible, but it’s not terrible.”
“What is it?” A contented smile played along his lips as he reached over and cupped her cheek, ghosting the pad of his thumb across her lower lip.
No one had ever touched her the way he did. So gently, like his hand was made to rest against her cheek. She liked pretending that. And she liked pretending he didn’t kill the Russells. Everything with Ian felt like pretend.
Fairy tales.
Unicorns.
Pixie dust.
And rock stars who fell for homeless girls.
“It,” she whispered, kissing his thumb, “is me being for your eyes only.”
Those dark eyes shifted to look at her—all of her. “I’m going to miss you. Waiting for you to get your passport and join me again … it’s going to be terrible.” He smirked. “Not as terrible as us. But terrible.”
She pulled away from his hand and sat up with her back to him.
“What’s wrong?” He propped himself up with one arm.
Jersey inhaled a shaky breath.
One tear. She already gave her one tear away. No more were allowed.
Her eyes disagreed, so she hurried to the bathroom and shut and locked the door. Why was she so damn emotional?
“Jersey?” Ian knocked on the door. “What’s wrong? What did I say?”
“Nothing,” she managed to squeak out while fighting back the demanding emotions. Why? Why did they need to be felt? Life was easier when emotions belonged to other people. Not Jersey. “Everything,” she whispered to herself, leaning her head against the door as more tears broke free. Ian brought more tears out of her in one day than everyone else combined over the previous eight years.
She heard a tiny thunk against the door, his head pressing to the other side.
“Say it. You don’t have to say it to my face. And we won’t talk about it again after you open the door, but just … say it,” he pleaded with her.
More tears. She let them fall freely. “You’re going to miss me?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding so close.
“No one has ever missed me before.”
“Jersey …”
She felt so stupid, so young, and so weak. Raw—Jersey had never let herself feel so raw and exposed.
“Let me in.”
“No.”
“Shut off the lights and let me in. Please.”
After staring at the switch for a few moments, she flipped it off and unlocked the door, keeping her back to it. Ian slowly opened the door and shut it behind him, leaving them in the dark.