Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“As it should be,” he says. “But I’m going to make sure you don’t want to say no and that you never forget me for all the right reasons. That’s a promise.” He covers my hand where it rests on his chest and lifts my wrist to his lips, caressing the delicate skin before pressing my hand to his face, as if he’s getting me used to touching him. But he leans into the touch as if he craves it, and then he kisses my palm, and I swear, it affects me. It’s tender, and sensual, and probably the sexiest thing anyone has ever done to me, and I am not without experience, but he affects me. Intensely, deeply.
With obvious reluctance, he releases me and takes a step backward, his hand on my door. “I’m two rows over. I’ll pull around to follow you. I’m in a—”
“—black custom BMW,” I supply, letting him know that yes, I was watching him at the window before I slip back inside the car, fully intending to, for once, leave him with a revelation as he did me today. But I should have known Nick Rogers would not leave his curiosity piqued without resolution.
He squats down next to me. “You were at the window.”
“Yes,” I confirm, turning to look at him. “How did you know I was there?”
“I felt you watching me.” He lowers his voice to a deep rasp. “Like I can feel you now, Faith, and I’m not even touching you.” And once again, like this morning, with a bombshell statement, he is gone, doing to me what I failed to do to him moments before. He’s already standing, the door shutting, and without question, as he’s intended, I am left in a sea of simple words that are not simple at all. And this time I do not have hours and a paintbrush to try to make sense of the way this man so easily affects me, the way my heart is thundering in my chest at this very moment.
He can feel me without touching me. I can feel him without touching him. I think back to my past, to the relationship that gave me the hard limits—a turbulent, addictive, completely-wrong-for-me relationship. Was it like this and I just can’t remember? I don’t think so, and yet it was passionate. It was intense. But it wasn’t this. And yet this isn’t romance. It’s sex. I mean, my God, we almost had sex in the bathroom. So, what makes Nick Rogers different? And I still can’t get past that sense of something darker than just our passion between us, that battle of friend versus enemy that should have scared me away. Earlier today, it would have.
Headlights now burn behind me, telling me that I am out of time, with no answers, and I accept this is how it must be, unless I plan to go panty-less and unsatisfied, which I don’t. I quickly turn on my car. Or I try. The engine clicks but doesn’t come to life. I try again. “No,” I whisper. “No. No. No.” The lights flickered when I unlocked the door. The battery isn’t dead. I try again with the same result. The headlights behind me shift, and Nick pulls in beside me. I try the ignition again, but the car doesn’t start. There’s a knock on my window, and I sigh, caving to my inevitable circumstances.
I open my door, and Nick rounds it, once again, squatting beside me. “Has this ever happened before?”
“No,” I say, “but I hate to admit this, because it’s completely irresponsible, which is not who I am, but I can’t remember the last time I took it in for maintenance. And it’s a BMW. They’re high maintenance.”
“Yes, they are,” he says, and to my surprise he doesn’t make me feel more stupid than I already feel. “But they handle the San Francisco hills and the Sonoma cuts and curves like no other car. We’ll get it towed and fixed in the morning. Let’s take my car.”
In the morning.
The inference being that he’s not planning on leaving tonight, but that rattles me far less than him feeling me without touching me. But right now, I need to deal with my car. “Yes,” I say. “That works.” I rotate to get out of the car, and he snags my fingers, and then my waist, to help me stand, and suddenly I’m flush against him, his hands at my waist.
And while moments before he’d held me captive with words, with the idea of touching him, now it’s the way he feels when he touches me. The way I can’t breathe unless he’s breathing with me when we’re this close. “I’m going to go inside and tell them we’re leaving your car,” he says, warmth in his voice.