Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 82411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
“Hey,” he says, and a second later I feel his fingers urging my face in his direction.
Before I can shake my head to refuse him, the warmth of his lips press to mine, and they stay there, his tongue demanding entrance to my mouth, something I offer freely. He doesn’t pull away for several minutes, and when he does, my entire body is on fire. As snugly as I pulled my seatbelt, as if the thing could save me if the plane fell from the sky, I’m seconds away from unclasping the thing and crawling into his lap, my declaration about the mile-high club quickly becoming one of the lies I promised him I wouldn’t tell.
“You look hungry,” he whispers, paying no attention to Hemlock, the guy sitting in the aisle seat.
“Starving,” I confess, my eyes once again dropping to his mouth.
The man has an expert tongue no matter where on my body he puts it, but in his mouth right now is the very last place I want it.
“We’re in the air.”
“Hmm?”
“You made it through take off,” he says, moving back some and pointing out the window to reveal nothing but wispy clouds floating by.
“And I thought it was you making me feel weightless,” I say, making him chuckle.
I smile as well and press my head to his shoulder, planning to spend the rest of the flight to New Mexico lost in the fantasy that we’re in love and heading for one of the adventures he spoke of earlier instead of the truth—he’s my escape from Lindell, even though I know you can never fully run away from any problem in life.
***
“Have you made your decision?” he asks once I open my eyes after the plane touches down.
We’ve just landed in Albuquerque, and I want to beg him to rent a car and drive us the rest of the way or to press his mouth to mine the same way he did in Texas.
“Decision?” I ask, my eyes once again locked on his mouth.
I swear the man is an addiction worse than sugar or caffeine.
“How is this going to play out in Farmington, Beth? Are you at the clubhouse with me or do you want your own place? I need to know because your answer determines how you get into town.”
I glance over my shoulder, finding Hemlock standing and reaching into the overhead bin to grab his bag, before looking back at him.
“How do you put your mouth on my pussy every day if I’m not at the clubhouse with you?”
I suck in a deep breath, doing my best to fight the embarrassment threatening to wash over me with my words.
His smile is slow and a little deviant. “Atta girl, sweetheart.”
He presses his lips to mine once more.
“You’ll miss the next flight if you start that crap up again,” Hemlock says, an air of indifference in his tone before walking toward the front of the plane.
“He seems delightful,” I mutter as I stand.
Derrick doesn’t make excuses or explain anything further about his teammate, and as much as it annoys me, I also respect him a little more for it. He could easily say that’s just him or he’s really nice once you get to know him.
Chapter 11
Oracle
“What do you think?” I ask as I open the door to my room and turn on the light.
“It is bigger,” Beth says as she steps inside. “A king-size bed?”
“I’m a big guy,” I tell her, and the smile it draws to her face tells me she gets every ounce of the innuendo.
“You are,” she agrees.
I drop both of our bags on the floor in the closet. It’s something we can worry about later.
“I need to tell you now that you’re here, that if you change your mind and want to leave, I’ll have to go with you.”
“Really?” she asks, her eyes wandering around the room.
“I can’t confirm that anyone was tracking us when we came back into town, but there’s always a good chance. We don’t control who watches the flight logs at the municipal airport. There’s always a risk.”
“So you’re saying that every day here is like that day back home?”
I swallow before confirming. That day was such a tragedy, and the sun hasn’t set one day since that I don’t feel some level of remorse about what happened there.
“You’re safe here,” I tell her. “Outside of this property you’re less safe, but we do our best.”
When she frowns, I want to open my mouth and argue that any time spent in a vehicle is a risk to your life. There are so many things that have to line up just right to ensure a safe trip back home. There’s traffic, road hazards, the damn tires on the vehicle, and a hundred other things that have to function correctly to be safe, but I know damn well those aren’t the things I’m talking about.