Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
He wanted to touch her again, with clean hands. There wasn’t time to make love, but he could hold her. He could cuddle her close and kiss her over and over until the end.
Make love. He’d never used those words with the act before. He’d had sex, fucked, gotten laid, but he’d never made love.
He loved Maggie. She was the one woman in the world who held a piece of his soul, and he was about to lose her.
He forced the dark thought back because he wasn’t going to panic. There wasn’t anything that panic would solve, and he would spend his final moments in peace.
He would spend them with her.
He strode back out, barely registering the clock as he moved to her.
2:37
Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds left to hold her, to love her.
She was under the covers and she drew them back, welcoming him in. He immediately pulled her into his arms.
“I hate that I wasted all this time,” he whispered, kissing her forehead. “I should have made a move, should have told you that first time that I thought you were the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen, but you seemed so cold.”
“About that,” she began. She rubbed her cheek against his chest like a kitten looking for affection. “I’m glad you didn’t because it would have been awkward.”
“The second time I saw you I wanted to kiss you. Do you remember?”
She smiled against his chest. “I remember. We were in Croatia trying to track down that bomb maker and we had to pretend to be lovers. You danced with me.”
Such a sweet memory. He’d thought she was gorgeous the first time, but the second time they’d worked together something had been utterly different. Something had slipped into place that had been missing before. “Your hair was flaming red and you were wearing that ridiculous green dress that had every man in the room panting after you.”
“Including you?”
“Oh, so including me. That was when I knew I wanted you. You were distant before and then we clicked.” They’d danced all night and brought that man down. Together.
Her head came up. “I should explain that. Why I seemed like two different people at times. Ben, I want to be honest with you.”
Their time was running out. So fast. God, he needed more time with her. She looked over and her face fell.
1:10
She shook her head and wrapped her arms around him. “It doesn’t matter. Just know that I always wanted you. I knew it from the moment I saw you. I knew you were the one for me and even though it was complicated, I was always going to end up right here. With you. This is how we end, Ben Parker. We end together.”
He held on to her and found her lips with his. He kissed her again and again, this time with no expectations of anything but to die in her arms. His cock thickened, but he could ignore it in favor of telling her how gorgeous she was, how lucky he’d been to meet her, to know her.
To love her.
She wrapped her arms around him and held on.
For way longer than a minute.
What the hell was going on? He glanced over and the clock read 0:00.
It held for one second and then another.
And that was when he heard the clang of someone knocking on the door.
“I’m coming in. Dear god, please cover up and don’t be doing something that will make me vomit,” a familiar voice said.
“Oh, shit.” Maggie turned and practically leapt out of bed.
The door came open and he was facing…well, he was facing a second Maggie, except her hair was a brilliant purple.
“Okay, sis, there’s good news and bad news,” Second Maggie said.
Maggie was reaching for her clothes cube. “I take it the good news is that we didn’t blow up, and that’s awesome. How did you manage to shut down the bombs?”
“I didn’t,” Second Maggie said. “Tris did. He and that Canadian dude worked some serious mojo while Coop and I took the helo up and tried to take the bomb somewhere safe. Luckily we didn’t need to because the techies came through. By the way, the comm problem was totally one way. We could hear everything, and also, there are cameras that fed out even after the power went off, so way to make a sex tape, sis. Dad’s probably getting hold of that one, you know.” She finally looked his way. “He’s going to kill you, dude. And you should know that it was totally me who shot you and kicked you in the balls.”
Yes, he could see that now. Damn it. She was twins. His head was kind of reeling because they weren’t dead, and now there were two of her and apparently she had some crazed father who wouldn’t appreciate his sexual performance.