Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 46875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Not that I need the proof, but there’s something to be said about a hero who turns up with fried chicken sandwiches at seven a.m.
Sure, it’s a shock. But how can I be mad once I’m in the warmth of his car, being this close to him again, and with a face full of the best Baltimore has to offer at this hour?
“Did you get any sleep?” Zak asks as I chomp on my breakfast, shaking my head as I chew.
Not even remembering the last time I ate anything.
He clicks his tongue disapprovingly, but I can tell he hasn’t slept at a glance.
“Were you parked out front all night?” I finally ask him back after swallowing another delicious mouthful.
He gives me a stern look. The ‘do as I say, not as I do’ look I thought I only got from my mom.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Zak confesses, and glancing at the road behind us in his rearview mirror, I feel the growing thrill of what’s actually going to happen now that I’m wide awake.
Still wearing my new favorite pajamas, the gear Zak gave me to wear last night, but with only my socks on my feet, I’m already wondering just how far we’ll get.
“I should’ve listened to my gut last night,” Zak rumbles, and thinking he means food, I offer him a bite of mine, which he takes as he drives.
“I mean…I should’ve just taken you home with me,” he says, shaking his head as if he’s disappointed in himself.
“I knew mom would be mad about me being late, but I thought once I explained about the job she’d be okay with it,” I offer.
“Clearly, she’s not?” Zak asks, cocking a brow.
I shake my head in silence, savoring my next bite, knowing it’s just been in Zak’s mouth.
Hoping now we both have garlic mayo on our lips, our first kiss of the day might just cover my morning breath.
Jesus, I must look a mess.
I’ve never been a morning person, and Zak’s buzzing at the door actually got me out of bed.
“I guess I just blew any chance of smoothing things over with your mom, too, huh?” he asks absently, groaning before I let him know I wished I never went home either.
“I should’ve just called her up and told her I wasn’t coming home. But you don’t know how she gets…treats me like a damned child half the time.”
“Well, we’re home free right now,” he says, taking a breath and smiling over at me. But I can’t help feeling that it’s not going to be so easy.
“You mean for now,” I mutter to myself, unable to shake off my uneasiness even though it feels so right to be with Zak again.
And only after I double-check to see I have my phone with me after a second of sheer panic.
The one thing I vowed never to leave behind anywhere again after last night.
It’s tucked safely in my hoodie pouch pocket, feeling like a grenade that’s about to go off once my mom figures out I’ve done a vanishing act.
“So… Are we heading to the workshop again?” I ask, politely ignoring the food that’s still left over even though my belly’s ready for more.
Zak looks thoughtful for a moment before answering. And slowing the car, he pulls over to the shoulder before we reach the turnoff to the freeway, turning in his seat to face me.
“I’m going to keep saying it,” he tells me, putting the car into park and taking my hand, those up-all-night eyes of his blazing with the intensity of someone who’d sit up for a hundred more if he had to.
“… I didn’t want to see you go last night. And I don’t want to see you go home again. I mean it, Jade. I want all of you, all the time. Not just someone who works for me. Hell, starting today, you never have to work a day in your life. Just say the word,” he says intently.
I gulp hard, but only because I know I feel exactly the same way, and hearing Zak tell me all this is enough to start my blubbering again. But Zak’s just warming up in the ‘this is how I really feel’ department.
Something only a real man of his experience and years could do and still be sexy as hell.
“I only came up with the game launch plans on the spot. The first thing that popped into my head as a way I could get to see you,” he adds, mixing in some true confessions about how everything has moved so fast between us.
“The games are months away from being finished, and there’s work there if you want it…,” he says, breaking off, looking like he’s trying to tell me a thousand things at once.
“I guess I’m saying, I’m a forever guy, Jade. And I want this. I want you…forever. Starting right now.”