Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“Alright. I’ll get everything out then and find the pans and stuff for you. If you’re serious about making dinner.”
“I’m very rarely not serious,” he says without smiling, his face passive.
“Okay.” Ugh, asshole.
I might have prepped this house childishly for his arrival, but he’s the one who insisted on coming even though he looks like he’d rather take a can opener to his balls than be here. Yeah, that’s a better image than the piercing studio. But if it were me, I’d choose that option and not the can opener because those things have serrated wheels that pinch together.
Whatever. I’m not going to abandon Project Show-this-dude-I’m-a tough-nut-to-bust-and-also-he’s-not-cold-and-dead-on-the-inside-and-that’s-okay. I might have taken the five-year-old child route to get here today, but I’m going to do better starting now, now that I realize it’s truly what was burning behind my breastbone all week.
The other side effects and body burn, we won’t talk about. I won’t think about that. They’re immaterial because those needs are never going to be met.
“You’re clearly not in the mood for conversation,” I add.
One eyebrow arches sarcastically while the rest of him gives me a full-body eye roll as he stands there as stoically as possible. Looks for sure like I’m filing this whole first hour into the little blue folder in my mental filing cabinet titled: Still not sure why you’re here if this is so damn against your will.
Maybe it’s hard being lonely and feeling that. Maybe that’s the hardest thing of all to admit to feeling when you’re supposed to have put all of it behind you. When you’re supposed to be rock-hard super stone—super because nothing about this man could be regular.
“I have an aloe plant on the windowsill,” I tell him.
“I noticed,” he responds dryly.
I treat him to my most sugary smile, then tone it down a few notches to half radiance when I remember he’s not supposed to have sugar. “If you’re so inclined, you can carry on a conversation with it.”
“I’ll take a pass,” he replies.
“You’ll hurt its feelings.”
“Plants don’t have feelings.”
I snort. “I beg to differ.”
“I don’t.”
“Ugh, talk to my crawfish then. It’ll be good.”
He shoots me a very pointed look. “I think I’d rather enjoy the silence.” Hint. Fucking. Hint.
I’m the one who gives him the full-body eye roll this time before saying, “I meant I think it would be good for you.”
Chapter six
Beau
Irealize two things immediately when I startle awake.
First, I’m trembling.
And second, I’m soaking wet. My sweats, my T-shirt, the sheets—the whole thing.
The first thing I do is check the meter to get a reading on my blood sugar, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve crashed or it’s high. I feel perfectly fine.
I am perfectly fine. My sugar level is right where it should be.
I lay there for a few seconds, trying to get my bearings. It’s hot, but not soak-the-bed hot. There’s a portable AC unit in the corner, humming away, and this room, unlike the rest of the house, isn’t inferno-level summer hot. Was it a nightmare? Am I sick? Getting sick? Should I get to the hospital immediately?
“Beau?” Ignacia’s sleepy voice saying my name attacks something in my chest that I don’t even understand. She reaches out, and before I can get the hell out of the contact zone, her fingers land lightly on my arm. “Oh my god!” She’s instantly awake when she feels my soaked skin.
She jumps out of the bed and hastily has the light switched on, scalding both our eyes in a hot damn second.
“Ow!” She shields her eyes with a hand over her brow like she just looked at the sun, but she doesn’t turn the lights off.
I blink down at the sheets, seeing dancing white spots. And then, she’s seeing me up close because she rounds the bed that fast. She slams herself down on the edge of the bed, and I have no choice but to make room by scooting back, or her delectable buns will brush against some part of my body. Fuck me. I don’t know if I’ll recover from a full-on ass brush in the middle of the night when I’m half asleep and strangely discomfited.
Or at any other time.
“You’re soaking wet,” she points out, but I’m not going to sarcastically do the no-shit thing since she sounds like she’s one tone on the shrill shriek range less than frantic. “And trembling.”
Fuck, am I still doing that?
“Jesus. I need to get you to a doctor,” she continues.
“I’m fine. It’s just hot.”
“It’s not that hot. Why are you shaking if it’s hot?” Her hand whips out before I can stop her, and it whomps my forehead. “You’re not burning up.”
“Thank you, nurse. I’ve already checked my sugar. I’m fine.”
“Are you coming down with something? Isn’t getting sick worse if you have diabetes?”
The pump is good at reading my blood no matter what’s going on, but force-feeding myself when I’m nauseous or sick as fuck to keep it at a proper level is horrific. At least, it used to be. It hasn’t been shit since I became rich enough to afford a private doctor who could pump anything into me nutrients-wise via an IV drip. I eat healthy, work out, and take a host of vitamins and supplements so that I don’t get sick often. Other than sometimes nearly getting my ass killed via the perks of my job, I’m in impeccable shape.