Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Of course it wasn’t the end of discussion.
Because then the catcalling began and all the ridiculous comments about how Shepard needs to find a way to make this stunt happen to impress me.
Ugh.
In any case, all my ideas to draw him out have majorly flopped and at the end of the movie day, I’m not feeling very enthusiastic about things. So when we reach our hotel, I have an early dinner with Isiah, Riot, Ledger, and Shep at the restaurant downstairs before saying goodbye and going up to my room. They’re still back at the table, winding down, but I’m tired and miffed, and I just want a long shower before I hit the bed.
And just to mention, I’m still not rooming with my fiancé. Not that I expected to since what he said about needing his space during the season was pretty definitive but still. My room, as it has been for the past couple of weeks, on a different floor than his and on the same floor as his. Again, I’m not sure who’s booking these rooms, but somehow, they have a very uncanny and uncomfortable knack of putting me with the wrong twin.
But as soon as I step on the elevator, which is crowded and almost full, all my thoughts about hitting the bed vanish.
Because he’s there.
Chapter 6
He stands in the corner.
All tall and broad and God, so handsome. His eyes lock with mine and I have to remind myself to get on before the doors close.
I find a spot just by the buttons, all the way in the front while he’s all the way in the back. Still, though, it feels like he’s close. It feels like there’s no one between us. It feels like the air’s running out of my body and my legs are about to give in.
Because he’s looking at me.
I know he is.
I can feel his gaze.
It’s like the flame of a candle, the match, his cigarette that he’s holding too close to my body, making me heat up. My skin. My belly. The place between my thighs that only he knows what it tastes like.
The elevator stops on every floor almost and slowly people disappear.
Until there’s only the two of us.
And then I have to, have to, grab hold of the steel bar so I don’t fall. Because this is the first time we’ve been alone like this since the night he came to my room, all angry about my accommodations, a week ago. So all the life’s gone out of my legs and I have no energy left to support myself.
Actually no, I’m lying.
I do have the energy. I do. And I realize that when he closes the distance between us. Up until now, we were standing on the opposite sides of the elevator, but now that we’re alone, he steps up to me, crowding my back, and that’s when all my energy flows out of me and I sag.
I sag against him.
My back hitting his massive chest.
Massive and hard and solid and heaving chest.
Or maybe he makes it so. I don’t know. Maybe he pulls me toward him until our bodies touch with only a graze of his finger. By only tracing the column of my neck with his rough digit from behind.
“What…” I swallow, my hands fisted, the spot where he’s touching me tingling. “What are you doing?”
His words waft over my skin like a warm breath. “Trying to figure out something.”
“F-figure out what?”
“If it’s just me or if you’re,” he rasps, his finger now just below my ear, swirling, “really as soft and smooth as I remember.”
I have to clench my eyes shut then, my belly tightening. “Stellan, you—”
I think he comes closer then.
I feel his body shifting against mine and then his plump mouth at my ear, whispering, “It’s not just me.”
Biting my lip hard, I say, “I-I don’t think this is appropriate.”
“Hmm.”
“Can you—”
This time, he stops my words by stopping the elevator.
Yeah, he does that.
Much to my shock, he reaches from behind me and very calmly presses the emergency stop button, bringing us to a screeching halt. I try to turn around to face him, but he’s still crowding me from behind and won’t give me the space to do so.
Still, I whisper, “Why did you… Why did you do that?”
“Because I want to do…” He pauses a second, bringing his hand back, and now, from what I can feel, rubbing the strands of my hair. “It with you.”
My whole body freezes and explodes at the same time. Both no and yes are at the tip of my tongue at the same time. Which is why I stumble and stutter out words, “You… It… I don’t think w-we—”
“Relax.” He tugs a strand of my hair. “I’m just here to ask a question.”
I wish I could say that I do relax.