Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Nothing.
What happened after that? Clearly something did happen, I think, glancing down and startling at my apparent nakedness. I reach for the sheet to pull it over my chest, the motion filling in one or two more blanks. I feel like I’ve undertaken a particularly punishing Pilates class, my muscles aching and well worked. But at the same time, I feel languid and sort of sated, swaddled in a satisfaction that has seeped through to my bones.
Clue number two is the spectacular love bite on my right breast, but the ringing bell of absolute obviousness is the very telling ache between my legs.
I’ve had sex. Enthusiastic sex. Which can only mean . . .
I turn my head and squeak, dropping the sheet in favor of pressing both hands over my mouth.
Sweet Jesus, fucking hell! This is so much worse than I thought.
I fake married a man who’s practically a stranger, then went back to my room with an actual stranger! Because the head lying on the pillow next to mine—the head attached to a pair of finely defined shoulders and a muscled back—can’t be Fin DeWitt’s. It’s someone with much, much shorter hair.
That’s okay. The wedding wasn’t real. You’re not really a reckless adulterer, I reassure myself, even as I press my teeth to my fingernails.
Bleurgh! Gel nails. Not the same sensation. I glance around the room for something to breathe into instead. But not a condom packet. Or even two of them.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity-fuck!
What the hell have I done?
My chest heaves, my breaths too short to be of much benefit. I might not be an adulterer, but I’m definitely stupid. Stupidly reckless! How could I risk the lifeline the Deubels threw me?
God, I hope it was worth it. I hope the sex was amazing—out of this world. And that it’ll come back to me in some other way than this dense awareness between my legs. Because, if I’ve lost the chance to save my business, to give Baba some semblance of dignity in her twilight years, there must be a silver fucking lining! A memory at least of a wild night of sex that happened once upon a lifetime. Something to bring a twinkle to my eye when I’m old and gray. Because, I say again, sweet Jesus fucking hell, what have I done?
I’ve barely moved, yet the stranger begins to stir, the muscles in his broad back flexing subtly under an expanse of smooth, tan skin.
He could be a soldier. A marine? He’s got the buzz cut. Not to mention the physique. It’s a wild guess, but it’s all I’ve got, along with regrets; a foggy, empty head; and a case of rising anxiety.
He stretches, his arm extending to reveal a thick tricep, before he turns with the elegance of a breaching whale, landing on his back.
That mouth. Those eyes. And the way he’s looking at me. Maybe sex with a stranger would’ve been preferable.
“You seem to be having a whole conversation with yourself.” His voice is thick and husky as his back arcs, lifting from his shoulders with a stretch. There’s something entirely sexual about the motion, which I ignore. Along with his apparent nakedness beneath the sheet.
A naked Fin DeWitt is almost impossible to ignore.
“‘Conversation,’” I repeat. My thoughts are more like a dissertation. And the title of my thesis?
Questionable Choices, Lust, and Lapses in Judgment:
An Analysis of How I Seem Determined to Ruin My Own Life
“You’re giving off some manic energy,” Fin purrs.
I swallow. My throat feels so hoarse, like I’ve spent the night at a concert, singing at the top of my lungs. Let’s go with drunk singing show tunes as the reason both my throat and my jaw ache.
“We seem to have had sex,” I say, plucking the sheet higher up my chest.
“Does look that way, doesn’t it.”
He is entirely unbothered. Or entirely satisfied. Whatever that expression is, it causes an avalanche of words to fall from my mouth.
“I don’t know whether to flip cartwheels or completely freak out that I don’t remember. This wasn’t supposed to happen. We weren’t supposed to . . . to . . .”
“Fuck?”
Wow. The word throbs like a bruise in my core.
“Exactly. I didn’t get paid for this.” What? “Not that I want you to pay me, obviously. Because I’m not . . . that is, what I mean is, for the record—”
“Whoa, whoa. No one is thinking that. Slow down. Take a breath, wifey.”
I rear back so fast, I know I’m giving double chin. I mean, wifey is bad enough, but his taunting expression is just too much.
“Pretend wifey,” I retort. Yeah, take that comeback . . . because it’ll take me a few minutes to come up with a better one. And by that point it’ll be too late to deliver it. “And there’s no need to keep up the act when we’re alone.”