Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 112917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Very horny hamsters.
“Laid?” he finished, eyes bright with teasing.
I closed my eyes and nodded maniacally. “So much laid. The laid-iest.”
The soft huff of his laugh made me grin.
“Zane…”
“Unless… unless you don’t want to. Sleep with me, I mean,” I added after seeing his hesitation.
He tilted his chin down and looked up at me through his lashes like I was being obtuse. “I told you already, there’s no gay man on Earth who doesn’t want to sleep with you.” Bear reached out to brush a strand of hair off my forehead with the back of a finger.
I wanted to close my eyes and revel in the moment like a cat in the sun, but I didn’t. I needed to focus. I’d never been in Debate Club in high school, but I imagined this was the kind of high-stakes pressure those kids had felt during competition. What could I say to convince him I was right?
I swallowed. “Okay. So you’re in… ah… need. After a very long dry spell. And I’m in… well, you could say I am also in need after a very long dry spell. Thirty-three years, as a matter of fact. So, I propose we take advantage of this isolated, secure location and the downtime we have here to, uh, douse the spell.”
“Douse the spell.”
“Wet it. Make it not dry anymore. Quench it? Whatever.”
Bear’s eyes continued to dance. “I know what douse means. I’ve never heard it used like that.”
I winced. “There’s a distinct blood supply shortage to my brain right now.”
He reached out again and ran his thumb across my cheek and down the side of my face. “You’re doing fine,” he murmured with a smile.
“Bear,” I breathed. “Please.”
He sighed. “Are you sure you don’t want to save yourself for someone special?”
You are special, I wanted to scream. But I knew better than to scare him off with the implication I would expect more of him than simple physical release.
“I honestly just want to do it. I want to have sex. With you. Again. Right now. Very much.”
It was the most selfish and forthright thing I’d said in as long as I could remember. But I was too far gone to care. I wanted him enough to throw out the truth and hope for the best.
Bear met my eyes and leaned in. My breathing picked up, turning shallow and jagged at the same time.
“You’re really hard to say no to,” he said, no longer smiling.
I could still see signs of hesitation in his eyes… but it didn’t stop him from leaning in and kissing me.
FOURTEEN
RYAN
When a bear has its eye on something sweet, like a late-summer berry bush or an untouched stash of honey, he’ll sometimes push aside his better instincts to indulge. Even if he knows he might have to contend with sore paws or painful nettle stings after, some urges are just too tempting to resist… especially when that sweetness is right there in front of him.
—Bear Facts for Insomniacs, Episode 73
Kissing Zane was the least likely way in the entire universe of maintaining my sanity.
I sounded breathless—and my brain felt severely oxygen deprived—when he pulled back a moment later.
Zane scooted closer to me and touched the tip of his index finger to one of the collarbone bumps at the base of my throat. His eyes stayed riveted there so he didn’t have to look at me. “What if… what if we just, um, practiced here. A little. In Norway. We’re on our own, mostly. You’re horny. I’m horny. You want practice. I want practice. This is like…” He traced my collarbone, which was proving to be an erogenous zone I hadn’t known existed. “The perfect practice scenario.”
His point was well-made.
Frankly, he could have said, “Me want,” and I would have thought it was a point well-made.
But Zane continued making a very strong case to my neck. “B-besides, I don’t get opportunities like this, a-and this was really special to me, what we did. Earlier. Because I know I can trust you—I trust you more than anyone—and that made it amazing. And you’re closer to me than anyone in the world, other than my brothers. And it really, it really sucks if that’s going to be, like, the only time we get to do that because I feel like I just finally got this opportunity, and also, I don’t know about you, but that… what we did. Earlier. That’s not enough for me. So it’s going to be really hard for me not to want that every time I’m with you from now on. And we’re going to be stuck together here in the house, so, like, what if we… just temporarily! It doesn’t have to go past Norway…”
He stopped, cleared his throat, and peeked up at me from beneath his lashes… which was quickly becoming my favorite Zane look. “You’re not saying anything. Does that mean no? Because… okay. That’s cool. I mean, I guess I could try to find someone else. I could ask—”