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)
“I’m so sorry—”
“It didn’t hurt me.” His stare dropped to her lips. “That’s not what I felt.”
Abruptly, Nalla couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Especially when he put her hand back on him: His skin was so warm and smooth, supple over the ridges of muscle and in spite of the patterns in it, which was a surprise. But like the ink would make it uneven?
“Was all this tattoo… did it hurt?”
“Yes, it was painful,” he answered. “That’s why I wanted the work done.”
Her eyes shot back to his. “Why would you do that to yourself?”
“I needed to feel something.”
She closed her eyes briefly. Then she glanced down to where the tattoos disappeared into the waistband of his leathers.
“Why?” she asked.
“Just where I was at the time.”
“And now?”
There was a long pause. And then his lids lowered to half-mast. “Yeah… I need to feel something now.”
So do I, she thought. But as she looked at his biceps, the cognitive whiplash was insane.
“I don’t understand how… any of this is real,” she whispered. “How you… are real.”
In response, Nate just pushed himself back against the pillows, and put both hands behind his shaved head, his pecs and shoulders filling up half the wall it seemed, his abdominal muscles flexing in a series of ridges.
“That’s a cue, by the way,” she prompted.
“For what,” he asked.
“For you to talk.” When he still didn’t answer, she shrugged and sat on the edge of the mattress. “You want to do this as charades?”
His exhale was long and slow. “Are you ruining the mood on purpose or…?”
“Is there a mood?”
“Well, I wasn’t going after a foot massage,” he said dryly. “Unless you’re volunteering or have a kink you want to explore with me. In which case, I’m down.”
Nalla didn’t want to laugh. And did anyway. “You’re funny.”
“And you’re beautiful.”
She reached up and touched her frazzled hair. “I’m a mess, and I smell like campfire.”
Those eyes of his traveled around her face. “It has nothing to do with what you look like. And everything to do with who you are.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Only the ones that go rucking, and use me as their sack.”
“That sounds dirty,” she said as she laughed again.
Down below, from what sounded like the living room, voices percolated up, and there was the orchestral introduction of a movie studio logo—or maybe it was HBO.
Nate looked at the bedroom door like he was hoping it was locked. Then he refocused on her.
“Do you want to kiss me again?” she asked softly. “Even if it’s not good timing.”
The stark hunger came back to his face and he unlatched his hands and reached out to capture one of hers. When he gave a tug, she went along with it, leaning onto his chest and feeling the contours of his strong body under her own.
“Yeah, I want to kiss you some more,” he said as his eyes lingered on her lips. “But it’s not a good idea.”
“Are you mated?”
“God, fuck no.”
“Girlfriend or partner?”
“No.”
“So how about you and I stop talking about timing.” Nalla shook her head. “Otherwise, I’m going to assume you’re scared of my father, and using the calendar as an excuse. Which is not a good look for you.”
“I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“You need to mind your own business with that.” She stroked his shoulder. “And I’m not looking for anything more than right now from you.”
“Fair enough.” His eyes shifted to her parka. “Aren’t you too warm in that?”
Nalla knew that if she took her jacket off, everything else she was wearing was liable to end up on the floor.
So she sat up and unzipped the puffy black folds. As she pulled them off, she could feel him staring at her body, his eyes lingering on her breasts under the fleece and t-shirt she’d been loaned.
Lowering herself back onto his chest, she stroked his pec. “You’re so hard everywhere.”
There was a beat of silence. Then he cocked an eyebrow. “Now, there’s a comment.”
Nalla blushed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Well,” he murmured. “It’s true.”
* * *
What the hell was coming out of his mouth?
As Nate was spitting lines like he was Shuli in a club, he couldn’t believe what the fuck he was saying. But here was the thing. When he looked at Nalla… he liked what was going on inside of him. For the first time in an eternity, there was something other than the darkness and anger, and though the mating instinct was like a freight train pounding through him, it was so much better than where he usually was.
Plus she was so close, her mouth just a couple of inches from his own, her breasts cushioning against his pecs, the scent of her arousal tingling in his nose, in his blood.
He touched her hair, stroking back the flyways that were damp from them rolling around in the snow, laughing. He still couldn’t believe she had lifted him up and marched across the meadow, and he was never going to forget the sight of her concentration, everything she had in her focused on getting them both back to the house: There could have been an NFL defensive line set up between her and that back door into the garage, and he was quite certain she would have plowed right through it.