Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
I tuck a flyaway hair behind my ear, my fingers skimming my hot cheek. You’re too flushed, Jane. “So…” I smooth my lips.
“So…” He almost smiles and presses a key on the laptop. “You okay?”
“Yes.” Touch me. My heartbeat dips between my legs. I cross my thighs and accidentally tangle up in the tulle of my purple skirt. Course correct. “I think my brothers and Sulli are hopeful that we’ll be home soon because of the satellite phone.” I stop fighting with my skirt. “Though, Akara hasn’t found a spot outside that won’t block the signal yet. But I still can’t believe Oscar brought one.”
Thatcher looks unsurprised. “He started packing a sat-phone when Charlie spent a week in a dead zone in Mongolia.”
“I had no idea Charlie traveled there.” I’m not shocked that this is new information for me.
My curiosity piques. “How much more do you know?”
“About Charlie?”
“Oui.”
Thatcher stretches out his bent leg. “Not a lot. Mostly his location while I was a lead, and even that didn’t always come in…” He trails off a little, watching me unearth a bottle of whiskey from beneath my blanket. “Where’d you get that?”
“I swiped it from the cellar. Second to last bottle.” I swish the liquid, then uncap it and put the rim to my lips. Warm liquid runs down my throat, and I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
Thatcher stares at me like the clouds have parted and I’ve descended from the sky.
I blush under his heated stare. “What?”
“You’re the hottest woman I’ve ever been with,” he says like a fact. Point-blank, as he sometimes adds.
I pulse. “I’m learning new things about you every day.” My lips rise. “Thatcher Moretti finds whiskey-drinking hot.” I take another sip.
“You drinking whiskey from a bottle is hot,” he clarifies. “And you just existing is fucking hot.”
“Likewise,” I murmur, sweating beneath my blanket. “Did you know arousal increases body temperature?” I blurt out like a helpful but embarrassing factoid. “Of course you do,” I quickly add and roast thinking about our nightlong sex in the car. “It’s an obvious…” I watch his eyes dip down the length of me. “…fact.”
I stop breathing.
He stands.
“Thatcher—” I cut myself off as he grips the opened laptop. Not letting go of his orders, his duty. But he locks the door to the laundry room. His strides are confident and purposeful, and I’m like a cat clawing onto every inch he moves.
He comes up to the washer/dyer and grabs the whiskey bottle from my hand. And he sets the laptop on a pile of folded bath towels. In distance to refresh the webpage.
He swigs the whiskey, then places the bottle aside.
Now he’s so near. I clutch his muscular shoulders while his arms wrap around my waist.
His scent dizzies me: wood smoke and cinnamon. He usually doesn’t smell like the latter, and I take a deep sniff of his white tee.
Our eyes suddenly meet mid-sniff, and it’s not the first time I’ve been caught inhaling his scent. Still, I flush like I’m baking under the sun.
“You smell different—not in a bad way,” I clarify quickly. “Just different. You have notes of cinnamon, which isn’t your typical scent. I don’t think…is it?”
Thatcher doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he’s quiet as he leans past me, his arm brushing my shoulder as he flicks on the washer/dryer.
It rumbles to life beneath my ass.
Dear God.
My body shakes with the vibration.
Arousal builds, and I inhale another lungful of his scent. “It’s more of a feminine fragrance than what you wear…” I freeze.
All rational thinking vacates my brain. Because rationally, I trust Thatcher and know he’d never cheat on me. Rationally, there are only three other girls in this house, and two are my cousins.
There has to be another reason.
Yet, my mind places him in this moment with other girls. Where he’s loving, sexy, and assured, all for them. My stomach overturns and clenches.
I could never share him with another woman, I realize.
“Luna was spraying her body mist in the living room.” He seizes my gaze with a look of unadulterated fealty. He must know what I was concluding, and instead of being hurt at the unwarranted assumption, he just wants to reassure me.
I love him.
I expect fear to be exterminated at the thought of love and Thatcher, but a bit lingers. Like a thorny vine ensnared around my heart, one my head refuses to snip.
Give yourself to him.
He can’t promise that I won’t lose my agency. It’s something that I have to work through on my own, and what if it takes years?
At least I understand the fear. I suppose that’s the first step in learning to let go and move forward. I just hope I can.
I nod, easing some. “It does smell like Luna.”
“She said she was winterizing the house, and I got hit with it.” He grips the back of his white tee, pulling the fabric off over his head. His sculpted abs come into view, dog tags lying against natural hair on his chest.