Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“Well, on the way over here, I had an idea. But it all depends on how comfortable you are wearing a kilt.”
Chapter Eighteen
BLAKE
Vance had looked at me like I was crazy on the flight when I’d laid out my plan of how to snap a picture of Paul with “The Creation of Man” in the background. Although I could admit it was absurd, at least I’d come up with a plan. All he’d had was, well, nothing outside of thousands of subscribers willing to pay.
Men… Act first, think later.
“People are staring,” Vance said as we shuffled up in the line leading into Vatican City.
“Of course they are. You’re wearing a kilt. In Italy.”
We’d been in Rome for a total of two hours, most of which we had spent arguing, in broken Italian, with one of the airport staff about Vance’s luggage. They had evidently placed his suitcase on the wrong plane, and it was halfway to Singapore.
Honestly, I wondered if that was the only reason he had ended up in the kilt. Anyone would choose a kilt over jeans in one-hundred-degree weather.
The line moved up a little more. I glanced at the sign affixed to the stone wall. NO ENTRY was written beneath a picture of sleeveless tops and above-the-knee shorts.
My attention dropped to the hunter-green tartan fabric that stopped just below Vance’s knees. For the first time in my life, I could see why some women were into those historical Highlander romances. Sexy legs and tartan fabric, bagpipes slung carelessly over their bare chest and broad shoulders. I wondered if there were any stories about the men using their bagpipes to get kinky with their lady-in-waiting…
Vance glanced at the sign, then back at me. “I don’t see a man in a skirt underneath the approved articles of clothing, Blake.”
“For the four-hundredth time, it’s a kilt. And it’s below your knees. So, you’re fine.” I pushed up on my toes to see over the line of people. Two guards with serious expressions stood by the arched entranceway. “It’s not like they’re going to arrest you.”
The line slowly moved up. Meanwhile, I sweated my ass off underneath the unrelenting sun. “This feels like literal hell…”
“Better get used to it.” Vance used a map he’d snatched from the hotel lobby to fan me, and I pretended not to swoon. “After today, it’s where we’re both going.”
“Me?” I piled my hair on top of my head, relishing in the small relief provided by his fanning. “You’re the one planning to take pictures of your penis.”
“True, but you’re my dick-pic sidekick.”
Oh, why did that have to rhyme? Dick-pic sidekick. Blake Leigh Brentley…
“My accomplice.” He nudged my shoulder. “The Bonnie to my Clyde.”
I wasn’t exactly the Bonnie to his Clyde. I was pretty sure those two had had sex. Lots of sex. I could be the Bonnie to his Clyde, though… Yep. That orgasm had fried my brain.
I wiped at the sweat dotting my forehead while studying the sharp angles of Vance’s scruff-covered face. Funny. Oddly charming. Sexy. My gaze dragged over his defined chest straining against the fabric of his shirt. The memory of him between my thighs with his holy grail of a tongue surfaced. Maybe it was time I stopped fighting it and accepted it instead of running off and sleeping in murder hotels.
A string of relieved sighs came from the line of people when a heavenly breeze kicked up. An unsettled expression fell over Vance’s face before he slapped a hand over the flapping hem of his kilt. “You really should go into sales.”
“Why? Because I convinced you to wear that?”
“Yes.”
“I barely managed to sell fundraiser chocolate to my grandma in first grade. There would be no way I’d successfully talk someone into upgrading their cellular service or purchasing a steel-plated casket.”
He lifted a brow. I could see it all over his face. There I went talking about coffins…
I half-rolled my eyes. “All I’m saying is, you wearing that isn’t because I possess some hidden talent of convincing people to do things. It’s just proof that you secretly wanted to wear it.” And that the airline had lost his luggage.
He waved a hand over the tartan fabric. “This isn’t want. This is desperation.”
To help the white-haired lady holding the cowboy hat-adorned wiener dog. Vance was selfless, so selfless he’d wear a kilt to the Vatican, hoping to take a picture of his boner.
What more could a woman want than a selfless man?
“It would be desperation if you wore that kilt for yourself, Vance.” I felt a soft smile shape my face as I took hold of his hand. “It’s called a sacrifice when you wear a kilt for the ones you love.”
The scorching heat could eat it. We’d been in line for what felt like hours, and all I wanted to do was get out of that line and into some air conditioning.