Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
“I’m going to go paint,” I say again, hurrying to meet him at the bottom of the steps. “I can tell you’re working, and I didn’t mean to—”
He pulls me to him and kisses me, his really wonderfully hard body absorbing the softer lines of mine. “Don’t do that,” he orders softly, a rough, intimate quality to his voice.
“Do what?”
“Act like you don’t belong here, because you do. And since you obviously don’t know that yet, I’ve got work to do. Abel’s a close friend, of which I have few. I wanted you two to meet. And we ordered pizza with the intent of waking you up to join us.”
“You did?”
“Yes,” he confirms. “We did. How do you feel?”
“Unsteady,” I admit, my hands on his upper arms. “I don’t know what I was thinking, drinking like that.”
“I’d like to think that you trusted that you were here with me, and safe.” He caresses my hair behind my ear. “If you fall, I promise I’ll catch you.”
“You already did,” I say, my hand flattening on his chest, my mind reflecting on the secret I sense in him and trying to understand when I paint him. “I’ll catch you, too. You know that, right?”
His gaze sharpens and then darkens, a hint of that secret flickering in his eyes, here and gone in a few flashed seconds. “I’ll hold you to that,” he says softly, but I sense the wall he now throws up, even as he twines the fingers of one of his hands with mine. “Come sit down and meet Abel.”
He attempts to put us in motion while I dig in my heels. “I’m not myself right now.”
“I’m half a bottle in,” Abel calls out, and Nick rotates to stand by my side, allowing us both to spy the bottle in Abel’s hand. “We’ll be speaking the same language, Faith,” he assures me.
Nick glances at me. “He’s an attorney,” he explains. “And he just won a big case that he wishes he had lost.”
My brow furrows. “He wanted to lose a case?”
“I did not want to lose my damn case,” Abel grumbles. “I win. That’s what I do.”
“All right, then,” Nick says drily. “Pizza for you both, and no more whiskey.” And this time, he doesn’t give me time to object. His arm slides around my shoulders as he sets us back in motion. I can’t help but think that Abel and I oddly have similar reasons for drinking. He had an obligation to save a client who perhaps didn’t deserve to be saved, much the same as what I felt with my mother.
“How are you this clearheaded?” I ask as we round the counter and Nick pulls out the barstool for me that sits between his spot and Abel’s. “Didn’t you drink with both of us?”
“I drank a pot of coffee,” he explains, indicating the thermal pot on the counter as we both claim our seats.
“He drank his No. 6 with you,” Abel comments, sounding less than pleased. “My bottle is beneath him, and for the record, you better be damn special to score the No. 6 over me.”
“Perhaps he needed No. 6 to deal with my version of crazy today,” I rebut, with the full intention of dodging an awkward bullet.
He laughs and glances at Nick. “Quick-witted. I like that.”
“Until she outwits you—and she will,” Nick assures him.
“Game on,” Abel says, glancing at me. “You know this now, but to make it official, I’m Abel. Especially when I’m not drinking.”
I laugh, finding Abel—the official or not-so-official version—easy to like. “You’re pretty humorous, Abel, especially when you’re not drinking.”
“A perfectly acceptable assessment,” he says, “unless it’s next week when I’m in court.”
“Ah well,” I say. “You might not be funny at all. I’m pretty sure I’m easily amused right now, considering my alcohol intolerance.”
“That’s a horrible condition, I hear,” he says, refilling his glass. “Thank God I don’t have it.”
“As you can see,” Nick interjects. “He’s a phone book of bad jokes, sadly, even when he’s not drinking.”
“My jokes amuse people with a sense of humor,” Abel comments drily, glancing at me. “In case you haven’t noticed yet, Faith, Nick doesn’t have one of those.”
“You know what they say,” Nick replies. “If you can’t be the good-looking one, be the funny one.”
Abel snorts. “If you are implying you’re the good-looking one, then you drank more than I realized.”
Nick offers me his cup in response. “Drink this. None of us need to numb our brains to the kind of stupid Abel’s attempting.”
Smiling at the banter between these two, and also eager to put the whiskey behind me, I sip Nick’s coffee, regretting it as the bitterness hits my tongue. “Oh God,” I murmur, unable to control the intense grimace on my face. “That is horrible.” Both men laugh fairly ferociously, and I shoot glowers between them. “It’s not funny. That might be poison. I don’t know how anyone drinks that.”