Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 164557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
“Does that happen a lot?” I ask her. “Getting overloaded?”
“I mean… Yes. I’m a STEM major. It’s senior year. I’ve got a capstone project to finish. Grad school essays that are due. I’m the VP of finance of my sorority, and we’re planning a huge gala. I’ve got a Little I’m supposed to mentor. A biological brother who showed up out of nowhere. I’m lusting over two boys—”
She stops, her mouth snapping shut.
Will grins.
I can’t stop a chuckle. “Lusting, are we?”
“Just shut up.”
We both laugh harder.
“Very mature of you, Charlotte,” I chide.
“I’m not Charlotte. I’m Charlie right now. Charlie tells people to shut up.”
“Yeah. What else does Charlie do?”
When she frowns, I realize how that sounded.
“That wasn’t a challenge,” I assure her. “I promise. No expectations tonight.”
“No?”
“We’re just watching a movie. Like last time.”
“Last time ended with sex.”
“Doesn’t mean that’s the precedent.”
“That’s exactly what setting a precedent is!” She sighs, glancing at the screen, which is frozen on a shot of Professor Qualls about to kiss the hot diamond thief he saved in the last movie. “Fine. What are we watching? Another one of your love-triangle rom-coms where you get to see boobs?”
Will chuckles. “No. It’s the most recent installment in the Timeline franchise. Number four.”
“You know, I’ve never actually seen these movies.”
I gape at her. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t have time to watch movies. Did you not hear that entire list of stressors I recited for you?” She pulls her knees up, making herself more comfortable as Will unpauses the movie. “Do you need to catch me up on the first three?”
“Nah, they’re all self-explanatory. That’s the professor who invented the time machine. The hot blond is his current love interest, but she’ll betray him. They always do. And the dude walking in right now is Professor Qualls’s son.” I nod at the bearded man gracing the screen.
“Wait, that’s his son? They look the same age—Ohhhh.” She nods. She gets it. “Time travel.”
Will snickers. “We’ve got a smart cookie over here, Beck.”
“The smartest.”
“Shut up. I’m just going to keep saying it all night. Shut up.”
I grab my beer off the table, my arm brushing hers when I straighten up. “Sorry,” I murmur.
“No, you’re not.”
My lips twitch. “I mean, I didn’t do it on purpose. But you’re right. I’m not sorry.”
Smirking around the rim of the can, I sip my IPA. I feel her watching me as I drink. When Will rakes his hand through his hair, I see her track that too.
She’s very aware of us. And I’m very aware of her. She repositions herself, stretching her legs to rest her feet on the table. Her socks are pink. So is the tank top she’s wearing underneath her oversize gray sweatshirt, which is falling off one shoulder. I wonder if she’s got a bra on beneath the tank. She wasn’t wearing one the night we met her for drinks in the suburbs of Boston, at the most random bar where nobody would see how naughty she was being. I remember the way her hard little nipples strained against her top.
My mouth is suddenly tingling. Fuck. I need to suck on something.
I take another sip, bringing much needed moisture into my mouth.
Charlie snorts at the cheesy joke Professor Qualls just made. The snort is somehow both sexy and adorable. Will’s laughing too. Deep and husky. For a second, my libido is like, what the fuck is happening? I have these two hot people beside me, and nobody’s naked. This feels like a travesty.
Still giggling, Charlie leans forward to pick up her tea. She blows on the liquid to cool it, but each time she raises the mug to her lips, she chickens out and doesn’t sip it.
Will, who’s also observing the great hot tea dilemma, finally breaks out in a grin. “Do it.”
“I don’t want to burn my tongue,” she whines.
“Do it,” he urges. “Feel the burn.”
With a deep breath, her entire body tensed up, Charlie takes the tiniest, most fearful sip I’ve ever seen. Steam moistens her face, and her nose turns red, as do her cheeks. I want nothing more than to snatch that mug out of her hand, pull down her leggings, and screw her brains out.
Yes. I am getting aroused watching a woman drink tea.
This is a first.
“Okay, that wasn’t too bad,” she relents before returning her attention to the movie.
Will is still trying to explain the plotline to her, his face becoming animated. “So basically, in the last movie, the professor found out he has a son with Maritza, the Spanish assassin he had an affair with when he time traveled to eighteenth-century Spain. He was trying to stop her from assassinating the man who in ten years would invent the cure for the rare blood disease that killed the professor’s first wife—”
He’s midsentence when Charlie leans over and kisses him.