Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
The idea that the two of them were going to get naked and nothing was going to stop them made her heart soar. This whole thing with Nate seemed both inevitable and a total impossibility. Had she really gone from being frustrated at Bitty for calling her out about the whole shut-in thing to this?
Whatever, she wasn’t going to question anything. She was going to enjoy it all—
The sound of a phone going off was like getting hit with an ice bath, and she jerked her head up. With her hair in her face, she couldn’t see Nate. She heard him loud and clear, however.
“Motherfucker.”
He stopped in the process of cupping her breasts and rearing over her. And as he grew still, she could have sworn she felt his heartbeat in his arousal through where they were in contact so intimately.
The muffled ringing continued. From inside the jacket he’d tossed on the floor.
When things finally went silent, he said, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Closing her eyes, she tried to reconnect with where they’d been. But something had changed for him, too.
Especially when the phone started going off again.
* * *
Nate wanted to stomp the fucking cell into silence. Instead, he straightened from the position he very much wanted to continue to be in, and grabbed his leather jacket off the carpet. Shoving a hand into the folds, he came out with the burner, and muted the thing without checking who was calling.
He knew damn well who it was and he was not dealing with Uncle right now.
As he put the cell back in his jacket, he looked over at Nalla. She, too, had stood up out of the glorious bend she’d been in, and she was covering her breasts with her hands.
Her face was falsely composed, like she was trying to be all I-don’t-care—and he didn’t want that for her. For them.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “It’s just a side hustle in the human world that I do to remain financially independent of Murhder and Sarah. This place is really mine. The land, the cabin—the barn and what’s in it. I earned the money and I’ve saved some, too. I don’t want to have to rely on anybody.”
The change in her was instant and absolute, the tension leaving her, the mask dissolving so that her real energy once again shone through her features.
“I really do mean it that I like it here.” She smiled a little. “And not just because of the privacy.”
“Good.”
“And I’m sorry if I’m awkward.” She gave him a sheepish look. “I don’t have a lot of experience with—whatever this is.”
“That makes two of us.” He stepped in close to her. “So how about we figure it out, together.”
As her head tilted back so she could keep meeting his eyes, he had a thought that he wanted to remember the way she was looking at him right now for the rest of his life. There was just a really special expression on that beautiful face of hers.
“I want to keep kissing you.”
“What a coincidence,” she murmured. “That’s what I’m thinking, too.”
They came together, their mouths fusing again, and he kissed her and walked her backward, all the way to the edge of the bed. As she let herself fall onto the mattress, she was laughing, and he made his way in between her legs, content—for a moment—just to enjoy the sight of her as she let her arms fall loose, her breasts exposed to him once again.
“Let’s lose your shirt, shall we,” she murmured.
He was more than happy to oblige, pulling the tails of his button-down out of his combats, and peeling it up and over along with the muscle shirt under it.
Down on the bed, she made a little noise that was the sexiest thing he’d ever heard—then again, everything she did was the sexiest anything ever.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispered.
He wasn’t sure about that at all, but like he was arguing with her? Nope. He had other things to do with her—and to get them on track again, he joined her on the bed, the two of them shimmying up to where the pillows were.
Nalla turned her face into one of them and inhaled. “Fresh laundry.”
He felt himself flush. “I washed the sheets and cases and put them back on before I left.” He put both palms forward. “I was not taking for granted that we’d be… where we are. I just thought if maybe—maybe—we, you know, ended up here, you’d appreciate clean everything.”
She snuggled in close and ran her hand up his arm. As her touch registered, his muscles contracted one by one, like they were responding on their own.
“That was really thoughtful of you.”
“Not skeevy, right? ’Cuz honestly… I wasn’t taking anything for granted.”
“Me, too. But I thought about you all day long.”
“You did?”
“Mm-hmm. I wasn’t sure, either. I hoped, though.”