Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 133682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Her red hair is piled in a bun, and she’s wearing jeans and a white sweatshirt that slopes off one shoulder, revealing a sliver of pale, kissable, freckled skin, and that silver snowflake necklace that I want to drag between my teeth only so I can lick what’s under it. I stare a little too long at her collarbone, remembering how she tastes. Like strawberries and champagne. Remembering, too, how much she likes kisses on her collarbone, her shoulder, and especially at the hollow of her throat. The way she trembles when I touch her there…
But if I linger too long in this memory, I’ll slip into other ones. More electric ones. Memories of the sounds she made when she came undone on my desk, of the way she shook when she fell apart underneath me, and most of all, how she tasted when I licked her off my fingers. Heat blasts through me like the door to a furnace has opened. All I got was just a taste and I want so much more.
I have to slam the door shut on that memory just like I close the door to her home.
“Come in. I’m almost ready. Make yourself comfortable,” she says, and I try to blink off the lusty thoughts as she gestures to an emerald-green couch in the middle of the little living room. Across from the couch is a metal table, held up by two brushed nickel frogs that look like they were sculpted straight from a fairy tale. That’s so very her. “Do you like frogs?” I ask, hungry for this intel too.
“Of course,” she says breezily. “They have big eyes and funny bodies.”
Another zing down my chest. Because she has a reason for liking frogs. Fucking frogs. What is happening to me?
“Let me just grab a couple things for the wedding and I should be good to go,” she says.
“I presume you’ve packed extra glitter dicks, just in case?” I tease, remembering that fateful morning that led us here—when she glitter-dicked me with her sister’s bachelorette party outfit.
Pretty pink flushes across Fable’s cheeks, but she volleys right back. “I always have emergency penises on hand.”
I resist the urge to offer my cock in case of emergency, but it’s hard. Only that thought’s not going to help me as we head toward a long car ride, so I quickly change course, pointing to the kitchen counter. “What happened to the toaster?” I ask.
“A battery fell in it from the smoke alarm.”
My brow furrows. Something’s missing there. “Is the smoke alarm not working then?”
She winces. “Yes. Maybe. I think so?”
“Did you use the toaster?”
“No. I tried to get the battery out but it was stuck, so I skipped breakfast.”
I take a beat to process all that. “Go. Get ready. I’ll take care of it.”
“Really? Thank you. I was going to do it, but—”
“I’ve got it, Fable.”
In the kitchen, I pick up the toaster, peer inside, then turn it upside down. Some crumbs fall out and the battery slips and slides. I wiggle the toaster a few times to no avail. After unplugging it, I find a pair of wooden chopsticks in a drawer, then use them like tweezers to remove the slim battery. When it’s free, I grab a kitchen towel and wipe the counter clean.
A few minutes later I’m up on the stool, replacing the battery in the smoke detector till it’s fixed firmly in place when she emerges with her suitcase.
She stops. Whistles. Then claps.
“What’s that for?”
“I guess that joke is wrong.”
“Which joke?”
“How many billionaires does it take to change a smoke detector battery? None. He hires someone to do it.”
I shake my head, trying but failing to hide a smile. “The correct answer is—one, if he’s handy.”
“And you are. Thank you,” she says, with genuine gratitude. But curiosity perhaps, too, as she asks, “How did you learn to change a smoke detector battery? Don’t you have people for that?”
“No. I do it myself.”
She seems flummoxed momentarily, but then she nods. “You’re very capable.”
‘‘Did you think I was…what? Spoiled?”
“Actually, I don’t know.”
“I wasn’t raised with money, Fable.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that,” she says.
“I know how to change a flat tire. To cook a meal. To perform CPR. To fix a faucet and change a lightbulb,” I say.
She dips her face, like she’s hiding a smile. One I want to kiss off. When she raises her face, she says evenly, but like it takes some effort, “That’s good.”
I have to know. “Why? Why is that good?”
She presses her teeth into her lips, then says, “I like that you’re normal too.”
My heart pounds too fast, then too recklessly. I blame that damn organ for the next thing I say, “I like your apartment. It’s very you.”
“Thanks.” She pauses. “That actually means a lot to me.”
As we leave, I take the suitcase, then set a hand on her back despite the fact that no one’s watching. But it feels right to touch her like this. It’s not helping my intention to compartmentalize, but that’s fine. I’ve got a plan, and a plan always helps.