Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69129 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69129 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“Depends.”
“On various variables?”
This time there’s no denying he’s grinning behind the fabric barrier. “Precisely.”
“Fine.” Grabbing the word search booklet is done in tandem with me inquiring, “What’s your favorite thing to call me when we’re alone?”
“Little Prey.”
My thighs mindlessly push together as if my body recognizes what my mind doesn’t seem to know how to register. “I’d never let myself be anyone’s prey.”
Wes wolfishly leans forward and folds his hands firmly together. “You’ve always been mine.”
Heat from his words has me flicking away a loose strand of hair from my face and diverting my gaze to the unopened object in my lap. “You sound a bit cocky there, Mr. Wilcox.”
“You sound like you enjoy it, Ms. Brynley.”
“You don’t know my last name?”
“I do.” He waits until my stare finds his again. “You don’t.” His statement furrows my brow; however, he doesn’t leave an opportunity for me to ask questions. “The giftshop didn’t have the best choices.” Wes tips his chin to the item I didn’t realize I’m death gripping. “It was either this or Disney themed.”
My blue glare falls back to the booklet to scan the subject matter inside. “You chose correctly. This one probably has ocean creatures in it.”
“You want sharks.”
“I always want shark shit,” I giggle again, thankful when he joins me in the light laughter. “What the fuck else would I want? Whales?”
“You hate those.” He removes a pen from his pocket to offer to me. “Particularly killer whales, which are technically dolphins not whales.”
I snatch the writing utensil out of his hold at the same time I cheekily snip, “There’s no need for you to be sexy and smug.”
“You mean smart?”
“I mean you should take off that mask and those gloves and stop hiding from me.”
There’s no denying the stiffness his frame takes.
Or the change to his breathing.
“You wanna stay in my room? Then you play by my rules, Mr. Wilcox.”
“Why?” Wes’s lean forward is deliberate. Defiant. “You never played by mine.”
“You never really wanted me to,” absentmindedly flows off my tongue.
Hope ruthlessly ripples through his two shaded glare as he whispers, “You’re right.”
Of course, I’m right.
I’m basically always right.
They really should just call me Captain Rightcard.
Wait.
No.
Rewind.
That sounds like expensive deodorant.
Which is so not the galaxy I was aiming for.
Removing the top to the pen occurs in tandem with my announcing, “You will give into my demands-”
“Oh, now they’re demands?”
“Rules can be broken, demands have to be fulfilled.”
“That sounds like terrorism.”
“Negotiatism.”
“Not a word.”
“Pretty sure it is.”
“It most certainly isn’t.”
“I just used it in a sentence.”
“You just used it in an attempt to poorly correct mine.”
“And ended the shit with a period; therefore, making it a sentence.” Firmly pointing the pen at him is attached to a crooked smirk. “Now, drop the mask, Mr. Wilcox, or catch a wave out of here.”
Additional arguments are non-existent.
He simply lowers his hood.
Slowly.
Allows me to drink in his messy dark hair and burn patches littering his ears.
Reluctance clearly rears its ugly head a second time prompting me to refuse to throw the hungry beast even a crumb of chum. “Don’t be a twat tease.” The corners of my lips curl upward as the pen soars to rest against them. “Show me the whole package.”
Amusement skates into bewilderment, yet he resumes his actions.
Tugs at the edges of the cloth.
Has it descending inch by painstaking inch, until it’s lifelessly lingering around his bobbing Adam’s Apple.
The instant his face is completely exposed, I arrogantly declare, “I fucking knew it.”
“That I should’ve kept it on?”
“That you had a face I would totally accept an invitation to sit on.”
Hungry growls I’m for some reason grateful to hear precede him airily proclaiming, “You have an open-ended invitation, Little Prey.”
“And I will happily take that invitation if,” my fingers turn to a random page in the booklet, “I like your answers to my questions.” Another effortless flick of the wrist allows the pen to gesture at his hands. “Gloves too, remember?”
Wes briefly surrenders his palms prior to beginning the removal of his accessories, starting with his right.
I allow my focus to fall to the object, immediately spotting the word Zebra from the savanna animal word bank. “Bath or shower?”
“With you?” The pause is minimal. “Bath.”
“It is more difficult to fuck in the shower.”
“It’s only more difficult to pin you down,” flirts the man that something in the back of mind is swearing isn’t a stranger.
Because if he were, he wouldn’t have known to get me this particular activity versus trying to shove a phone in my face.
And sure, he might’ve known my affinity for sharks – I have a fucking great hammerhead tattoo for Federationsake – but my disgust for whales is a little less well known.
At least…I think it is?
I drop the tip of the Bower and Powell Aquatic Institute pen onto the page and begin circling, smile spreading during the process. “That sounds about right. I like being pinned down but getting me pinned down tends to be the challenge.”