Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 119005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
Heat flushed through me, and I took a spoonful of my soup to distract myself.
“I don’t do casual,” Beth suddenly announced.
I swallowed quickly, wiping my lips with my napkin. “I’m aware.”
“Like, I know we’re flirting and bantering, but I don’t do casual, so this isn’t heading toward the bedroom. I don’t want to lead you on.”
My mouth curled at the corner. “A woman is allowed to flirt without worrying a man sees it as a guarantee of sex. No one owes anyone sex just because they flirted.”
Beth studied me for a second. “You need to stop saying stuff like that.”
“Why?”
“Because it makes me want to throw out my own rule book and have my wicked way with you.”
I swallowed hard, because I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I wanted someone this much. Shifting in my seat, I cleared my throat. “Why are you obsessed with wanting to find a real relationship?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed.” Beth frowned. “I mean, I did start a podcast at uni about it, but it’s not an obsession. It’s a mission.”
I didn’t tell her I already knew that.
“I guess you could say I’m in a hurry to find Mr. Right. I don’t want my whole life to pass me by before I find who I’m supposed to spend it with. My mum met my dad when she was only twenty-two. He was thirty, divorced, successful, playing the field a bit because he’d married young … and then he met Mum. Everything changed for him then. He pursued her relentlessly until they fell in love. They’ve never looked back.”
It was clear Beth saw her parents as some kind of romantic ideal. That annoyed me because it had clearly set her on this unrealistic path in search of “true love.” And true love didn’t exist. Because of that belief, she was missing out on things that did exist. Like great fucking sex with me. “Sounds like a creep. She was only twenty-two.”
Beth glowered. “My mum was mature for her age. She lost her entire family when she was a teenager and moved to another continent all by herself.”
I inwardly winced because I remembered Beth had told me that in high school.
“And thirty isn’t old. You’ll be thirty in five years, Captain.”
“Don’t remind me.” I sighed. “Look, sorry. I didn’t mean to insult your parents. I think you’re missing out on life because you’re trying to find something that might not exist.”
“If you’d grown up around the couples I grew up around, including my parents, you wouldn’t be so cynical about love. It exists.”
I used to think so. I even used to think I felt it for Beth. Now I knew it was only intense physical attraction, and I still believed I wasn’t going to get past it until we’d slept together. Something that would not happen if she didn’t ease up on her search for Mr. Right. “You know, sometimes the best sex people have is with people they don’t love. Not caring what the other person thinks gives you freedom to be yourself in bed.”
“Maybe.” Beth shrugged. “But as much as I’d quite like to see you naked, Callan Keen, I want to find something real. And I’m twenty-four. I’m running out of time.”
“Correction—you’ve got all the time in the world. And if you ever come to your senses and realize that, I will happily strip naked and let you have ‘your wicked way’ with me.”
Beth’s gorgeous eyes twinkled with amusement. “Good to know.”
“But”—I leaned forward, lowering my voice—“it will be in exchange for letting me lick and fuck every inch of you, Beth Carmichael. I’ve been fantasizing about it a long time. It’s a pent-up need to have you come on my tongue so many times, I’d taste you there for a week.”
Her breath caught, her lips parting in an O that made me want to kiss her until we were desperate for oxygen. Suddenly, she pressed the back of her hands to her cheeks and let out a shaky laugh.
She was turned on.
She was sitting across from me in this cozy wee restaurant, aroused. She was probably wet.
Fuck.
The thought sent blood rushing to my cock, and it strained against the zipper of my jeans.
“We need to talk about something else,” I said gruffly.
“You were the one who went there.”
“Now I’m asking us to go somewhere else.”
Beth licked her lips, making my downstairs situation worse. She cleared her throat. “Explain how these three tournaments work again …”
Grateful, I dove into the explanation of how the tournaments worked, and as she’d meant it to, it worked on dousing our arousal.
But just a dousing.
As we strolled back to our flats, sexual awareness simmered between us. All it would take was one of us to throw gasoline on the spark.
Apparently, it wouldn’t be Beth. Before I could even say a proper good-night, she strode away from me at the top of the stairs, got her keys into the lock this time, and stepped inside with a much more confident “See you Saturday” over her shoulder.