Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“You...should.” Two words, and she felt like it took her forever to think of what to say. Nik’s presence was as drugging as ever, and this near, with his hard body pressed against hers, there was no escaping its debilitating effects.
For one moment, she tried – she really did try to pull away. She tried to think clearly and not let her trouble-making impulses get the better of her.
For once in her life, she waited and gave the tiny, sensible voice inside her head a chance to issue its warning about frogs. She had dated and had her heart broken by twenty-eight men, and that voice had issued warnings about each and every one of them. That voice had told her they were all frogs, and they wouldn’t change – they’d stay frogs – even if she kissed them, but she hadn’t listened to it. Not once.
So where was it now? Why wasn’t it warning her?
Nik’s lips left her all of a sudden, and Daria had to swallow back a moan of protest. While she wasn’t shy about showing her affections, Daria also knew she had to at least try not to crowd him. At the end of the day, she and Nik still barely knew each other. While she was almost 100% sure about his place in her life, she had to take it easy on the poor guy and not terrify Nik with how much she, well, liked him.
“We should go.” Nik’s tightly spoken words drew Daria’s attention back to him. He was breathing hard, fierce hunger glittering in his dark eyes as he stared at her. Even so, it was just as evident Nik was determined not to let his desire take control.
And that’s probably why there weren’t any frog alerts, Daria thought dizzily. Aside from being the only man who hadn’t assumed she would be an easy lay just because she liked to flirt, Nik was also the man she had asked God for.
She knew the reason would sound silly to most people, but Daria believed in it with her whole heart. She had sincerely asked God for someone He thought was good for her, never mind what Daria thought she wanted, and He had given her Nik.
And sure, their first meeting hadn’t exactly screamed serendipity – in fact, Nik had initially thought she was mental for throwing a Gatorade bottle at his head, twice – but who cared about that?
God works in mysterious ways, Daria told herself. That their first meeting was more like grounds for a lawsuit shouldn’t and didn’t matter.
As Daria raised her gaze to Nik, something inside her turn warm, soft, and gooey when his gaze immediately captured hers like it was his right to have her stare at him all the time.
This was what mattered, she thought feverishly. This feeling that she had been waiting for him all her life—-
This.
Something that she shied away from labeling just yet, mostly because in her own mind, she was scared saying it out loud would make her seem crazy. People didn’t feel this so soon, and this happening at first sight could only be make-believe but—-
Daria mentally shook her head. None of that mattered, she reminded herself. She could leave it unnamed for now, and it wouldn’t make a difference. What she should concentrate right now instead was—-
Nik stiffened at the look in Daria’s gray eyes. “No,” he rejected in a clipped voice. Whatever she was planning, it was certain to be a bad idea.
But it only made Daria plant her hands on his shoulders, and stiffening even more, he demanded, “What the hell are you doing?”
She didn’t seem to hear him, too busy looking around them, and Nik found himself doing the same. The empty alley, a narrow sanded pathway, led straight to the island’s tourism office behind them. It was closed for the weekend, but there were posters on its windows, encouraging guests to download the office’s free app.
That was interesting to know, Nik thought with a frown, but what did that have to do with them? He turned his head back to Daria to ask, but the moment he did, Daria rose to her toes and, clutching his shoulders more tightly, covered his mouth with hers.
Nik froze.
His entire adult life, he had only two important rules.
Never mix business with pleasure.
Never let pleasure rule him.
Nik had seen how sex – often masquerading as love – ruined the people he had foolishly trusted. His own foster mother, one whom he had lived with for years and thought of as his own parent, had turned on him in the end, and all because she had supposedly lost her heart to a greedy con artist.
He had never allowed anyone to be close to him since then, had never allowed himself to be in a situation where he was not fully in control, and yet with the woman in his arms – the woman trying to seduce him with fake, innocent kisses and succeeding –