Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 93578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 468(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 468(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
When I opened my eyes, she was looking up at me, stunned and shaken. “That was . . . wow.”
“Yeah. We probably got in a little more practice than we needed.”
“No, I think it was good. Practice makes perfect, right?”
“That was pretty fucking close to perfect.”
Her lips curved into an adorable grin that made my chest ache—but it was a good ache. A protective ache. I didn’t want her to leave my bed. Would she stay the night with me?
“I wasn’t sure if I should come in here.” Her fingers played in my chest hair.
“Seriously?” I shifted onto my side so I wouldn’t smother her, but I took her with me, so we were face to face.
“Yeah. I could not make up my mind about whether you wanted me like this or not.”
“Convinced now?”
She giggled. “Mmhm.”
“Good.” I kissed her forehead.
“I even came in here while you were downstairs turning off the lights to steal a shirt. That was going to be my excuse if you caught me in your bedroom, and then I was going to attempt to seduce you. But you took so long coming back up that I lost my nerve.”
I laughed, propping my head in my hand. “Sorry. I was trying to give you enough time to make the choice on your own about which bedroom to sleep in. I was hoping you’d choose mine, but I didn’t want to pressure you. But please tell me you’ll attempt to seduce me again.”
She smiled. “Maybe. You’ll have to wait and see.”
“This is definitely a side of you I’ve never seen.”
“There’s a reason for that. We’ve always been such good friends. I mean, we still are.” Her tone grew a little frantic. “Right?”
“Of course we are.” I tucked her hair behind her ear. “In fact, I’m really glad to hear you say that.”
“Why?”
“I can’t promise anything more.”
“Because you suck at relationships?”
“Hey.” I tugged at her hair, and she burst out laughing.
“Sorry—couldn’t resist,” she said. “But don’t worry, I can’t promise anything more either. To be perfectly honest, I suck at relationships too.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Believe it. I mean, I’ve never dated a Zlatka, so no one has ever told me that to my face, but my sister Millie said something today that hit pretty close to home.”
“What did she say?”
Felicity played with my chest hair again. “She said the reason I’ve never had a successful long-term relationship is because I break up with anyone who says ‘I love you.’”
“Is that true?”
“One hundred percent.”
I’d expected her to deny it, so her honesty made me laugh. “And why is that?”
She didn’t answer right away. “I don’t really know. I’ve just always been that way. I suppose I figure things are going to blow up at some point anyway, so I might as well light the match.”
It didn’t take a psychiatrist to know it probably had something to do with her real mom abandoning her when she was so young, especially having overheard the fight with her dad, but if she wasn’t ready to talk about it, I wasn’t going to make her. Nothing worse than someone trying to be your therapist when you just needed a sympathetic ear—something my sister did not seem to understand.
“Well, I think Zlatka is into women too,” I told her, “so if you’d like to date her, I’m sure she’d be glad to tell you exactly why you suck at relationships. Although, she’s not likely to tell you she loves you—at least, she never said that to me—so maybe things would work out with you guys.”
Laughing, she slapped my shoulder. “No, thanks. I don’t need Zlatka in my life pointing out all my flaws.”
“You have no flaws.”
“Ha! I’ve got plenty. But I’m actually sort of glad for one of them tonight.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes, if I had better impulse control, I might not have told Mimi we were engaged, and then I would not have just experienced the best two orgasms of my life.”
My chest puffed up with pride.
She snuggled closer to me. “Tell me something about yourself that I don’t know.”
“Like what?”
“Something from before we met.”
I thought for a second. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a professional baseball player.”
“You did? I didn’t even know you played baseball.”
“I quit right before we moved up here.”
“Why?”
“I had a really bad game. Struck out three times in a row and cost my team the league championship.” It was a memory I hated, so I tried never to go back there.
“Oh.” Felicity rubbed my shoulder. “I’m sorry. That had to feel terrible.”
“It did. I never played again. But it’s not like I was going to play professionally anyway. I was talented, but I wasn’t that good.”
“Well, I’m glad you told me. The childhood baseball dream seems like something a fiancée would know.”
“What did you want to be when you were a kid?”