Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
His eyes were a luminous jade color, pale green at the center and then ringed dark around the outside. Like some sort of light green sunburst, all within his irises. His skin was like porcelain, smooth and perfect even though he looked about my age. His gentle curls framed his face, their chestnut color making his pale eyes pop even more.
And his lips. Fuck, his lips. Plush and pouty, even though he clearly wasn’t consciously pouting. Perfectly dusky-pink, with the corners just slightly upturned, like he was hiding a secret or a smile.
Where the hell had this guy been? He had to be new. I’d lived in Amberfield for a long, long time. This was a small town. I sure as hell would remember seeing him, if I had before.
I cleared my throat. “Well, afternoon, then,” I said.
He puffed out a little laugh, hiccuping again, his incredible eyes going a little droopy.
Gorgeous, yes. But also definitely very drunk, already, and it wasn’t even five o’clock yet. Sure, maybe Sam and Perry had been watching the guy because of his good looks, but maybe he’d also worn out his welcome at the bar. I had to assess the situation a little more deeply.
“I’m Roman,” I said, holding out a hand. “What’s your name?”
He laughed again, quietly. His laugh was as beautiful as every other part of him, but there was a darkness behind it. Maybe a bitterness, too.
“Very funny,” he said, glancing from my hand to my eyes and then back again. Finally he reached out to shake it, his skin every bit as soft as I’d expected against my big, calloused mitts of hands.
“It’s fine. You don’t have to tell me yours,” I said. “Just trying to be friendly.”
The man peered at me, squinting a little, those otherworldly eyes cutting straight through to my soul. “Wait, are you serious?” he said in his soft-as-velvet tone.
“Serious about trying to be friendly?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow. “Yes. I know I look like a linebacker, but my brother’s the football player, not me. I’m harmless, I promise.”
It was a small lie.
I wasn’t harmless, of course. I’d trained in every type of defense under the sun, and was working on my fourth martial art. But it was true that I never wanted to hurt a soul.
One corner of the guy’s mouth came up in a lopsided smile, and he shook his head at me. “Bullshit.”
So he was drunk, gorgeous, and smart, too. The top few buttons on his shirt were undone, revealing the skin on the top of his chest. It took effort to keep my eyes away from it.
“Okay, you’re right,” I said. “I’m not harmless. But I do promise I’m just trying to be friendly. Just been a little lonely, lately. I’m trying to… talk to more people.”
His eyes perked up from their droopy, drunken state, going a little wider. “Trying to talk to more guys, specifically?”
I felt my insides go hot. I swallowed hard, looking back down at my beer.
He’d just pinned me to the wall, for the second time in a minute.
Why was it so hard to admit it? Yes, guys, specifically. Why couldn’t I just say it, even to a complete stranger inside a very gay-friendly bar?
“Not sure why you ask that,” I said.
“Because you’re hot as fuck, and I want to know if I should flirt with you or not,” he said, calmly, licking his lips afterward. He looked from my eyes to my lips and then back again, as if he’d done this a million times.
He knew exactly how alluring he was, drunk or not.
“You still haven’t told me your name,” I said, trying to ignore the tug deep inside of me that wanted me to pounce on him. “But I’m starting to think you don’t want to. It was nice meeting you.”
I gripped my beer and pushed up off of the stool, suddenly feeling like I had to get far away from this man before I lost myself entirely. My head was spinning, and it made me feel distinctly out of control, in the exact way I hated.
When I was nineteen, I’d admitted to my best friend Chandler that I had feelings for him, in a moment where I’d been equally out of control.
It had been a colossal mistake. I’d lost him forever as a friend.
And even though the stakes were much lower, here with this stranger, I still wasn’t about to push my luck with a man who was drunk, acting suspicious, and wouldn’t even tell me his name.
“I was hoping you’d drag me home with you, actually,” he said from beside me, and I stopped in my tracks.
Heat flooded through my body. God, I wanted to turn around and say yes, even though all of my security-minded instincts told me something was up with this guy. Here it was. Dangled right in front of me like a damn frosted slice of cake. A man—probably the most tantalizing man I’d ever seen—propositioning me. I wouldn’t even have to do any of the work of flirting or dating, and yet I was too spooked to go through with it.