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)
I mean look at the way he reacted to my little accident. That, if not for his such an intense reaction, I wouldn’t even remember right now.
Which gives me an idea.
It’s terrible. I am terrible for thinking it, but I can beat myself up about it later. Right now, I need to do things. I need to know what his secret is because I’m starting to think that there is one. There is a freaking secret, which is why he thinks he’s so bad: a bad brother, a bad man.
I flit about his room, dragging his luggage from where it’s sitting in that corner by the door and opening it to look through his things. One by one, I dig through his clothes and since I’m already unpacking, I also hang his clothes in the closet. See? I can be nice. I also arrange his shoes and put his T-shirts and things away in the chest. At one point, I take my own clothes off and put on one of his coats just because being here has made me miss him more and he’s always putting me in his coats, isn’t he? I guess I’ll just save him a step and wear it myself.
His books are packed in a different suitcase—have to be for how many there are—and I bring them out as well and arrange them on the bed, like I saw them that one night, before picking out what looks the most interesting to me so I can give it to him to read and promise that I won’t distract him.
When I’ve unpacked every single thing he owns, everything very normal and run of the mill, I once again stand in the middle of his room, both relieved and disappointed. I don’t know what I was hoping to find, but I didn’t find it and I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Sighing, I crawl into his bed, among the scattered books, and lie down. I decide to watch some TV to stay awake until he gets here.
And the next thing I know, I hear the shower running in the bathroom and I’m jerking upright in the bed. In the process of that, I realize that my legs get tangled up in something: a blanket.
I’m covered in a blanket.
I wasn’t covered in a blanket when I got into bed.
My eyes snap over to the bathroom. The door to it is ajar and steam wafts through it and…
He’s here, isn’t he?
He’s back.
Just as the thought occurs to me, the shower shuts off and a few seconds later, the man of my dreams is standing at the threshold, rendering me speechless.
Rendering me frozen and breathless.
Because all I can do is stare at him. At his gorgeous, magnificent, breathtaking body that’s draped in only a simple white towel. That I think makes his tanned skin, in contrast, look even darker and more delicious, shinier. Or it could be the fact that his muscles—holy God, his muscles—are still damp from the shower.
They’re actually wet if we go by the droplets, several of them, sluicing down the hills of his chest and the rugged terrain of his abs. I think it’s his hair; it’s wet, falling over his forehead and he hasn’t really toweled the water off. So the droplets are cascading down the side of his neck, tracing his veins, and his shoulders, bumping onto his sculpted collarbone, and oh my God, he has to be the sexiest man alive.
He has to be.
Even that light dusting of his chest hair is sexy.
“I love your chest hair,” I blurt out and then immediately both blush and cringe.
I don’t think that was very cool of me, just blurting things out like that without context. On the other hand, though, he does know my obsessive tendencies, so what the hell.
In any case, I can’t really tell what he’s thinking because his features are all blank, his eyes cool. “You should put some clothes on.”
I fist the blanket. “What?”
He walks farther into the room and goes straight to the chest. While getting his drawstring pants out, he says, “And I’ll bring you back to your room.”
I dig my heels on his bed as if planting them even more firmly. “I’m not going back to my room. Where…”
I had more to say, I swear. But then he drops his towel on the floor, and I forget all the words in the world. Because I get to see his ass for the first time and… I guess what they say about being able to bounce a quarter off an ass is actually a real thing.
It’s reality.
I could bounce a quarter off of Stellan Thorne’s ass because Stellan Thorne’s ass is a work of art. It’s tight as a drum and round. And he actually has these dips on the sides that means that just like his chest and abs and arms and thighs, every inch of his butt is made of tight, sculpted muscles.