Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
That was if I were wild.
Which I wasn’t.
I was simply Sane Jane. Nothing was weird about me at all. Totally normal. Sometimes I had bizarre thoughts, was all.
The sane part of me didn’t want to smell him at all. Whenever I saw his permanent scowl, I’d want to punch him in his gut.
His rock-hard gut.
I noticed his abs the other day when he ran shirtless around the neighborhood. No evil person should’ve looked that fit. It was a pain in my behind how good-looking that man had been. I bet his abs smelled like cocoa butter, too. I bet he lapped handfuls of lotion across every crease of his body in the morning and night. His skin looked too glimmery for him not to have a solid routine.
Stupid Alex and his stupid body.
As he pressed up against me in the elevator, his biceps brushed against my skin, sending tingles down to places in my body that shouldn’t tingle from his touch.
“Stop touching me, Goldie,” he hissed through gritted teeth.
“I’m not touching you,” I replied. Alex glanced down at my arm, resting against his, then back at me. I rolled my eyes. “You’re touching me!” I whisper-shouted.
“You’re making out with my forearm,” he argued.
I ripped my touch away from his and turned slightly to tuck deeper into the elevator corner. “I would never make out with a forearm like your stupid forearm!” I replied, disgusted by the idea of it. “You have awful forearms.”
“My forearms are fine.”
“Your forearms are hairy! And ugly. And stupid.”
“Forearms can’t be stupid.”
“I thought the same until I saw yours.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You’re very immature.”
“Only to people I hate. And I hate you, Alex Ramírez.”
“That’s not very nice of you,” he sarcastically muttered.
Oh, this man made my skin boil. “Yeah, my niceness leaves the building when my water dish shatters into a million pieces.”
“It was just a water di—”
“It was not just a water dish!” I shouted, making everyone turn to look my way. I cleared my throat as my nerves hit the pit of my stomach. I smoothed my hands over the fabric of my shirt as the elevator opened to the fourth floor. Everyone hurried out except for Alex and me.
He moved to the left side of the elevator. I stayed on the right.
The elevator opened to the sixteenth floor.
My floor.
I cocked an eyebrow. “Aren’t you on the fifteenth floor? Get off my floor!”
He muttered a cuss word under his breath. “Those people didn’t hit the fifteenth floor. It skipped mine.” He got off the elevator and started following me down the hallway. “And it’s not your floor. You just live on it.”
“Yeah, well. It’s mine now. Get off my floor!”
“I am. I’m taking the stairs down,” Alex stated, gesturing toward the staircase exit across from my apartment.
“Take them faster,” I urged.
He then proceeded to walk in slow motion.
Now who’s immature, Mr. Cocoa Butter?
“Ugh. You’re a pain in my—”
“Careful, Goldie,” he stated. He glanced down the hallway before moving in closer to whisper. So close that his hot breath melted against my cheek. So close that my heartbeats intensified from his proximity. “You wouldn’t want the townsfolk to hear you mutter a bad word. It would destroy your good-girl reputation.”
“I hate you,” I spat out, feeling so tiny next to his broad frame.
“So you’ve stated.”
“Some things are worth repeating.”
“And that was one of them?”
“That was one of them,” I agreed.
He brushed his hand across his mouth before dropping it to his side. I stared at his mouth as if in a trance. I hated him. I knew I did. I had to hate him. He was mean, grumpy, and—gosh. What was that with his eyes? Now and again, his eyes would flash with a moment of softness I wanted to unpack. Why did I want to know the story behind his pages? Why did I care about the ink that scribbled against his soul?
“Are you okay?” I blurted out without thought. My chest hurt from seeing that flash in his eyes. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me from the pained expression he hadn’t even known he’d showcased.
Why did I feel the need to hug him? Why did I feel like I wanted to cry?
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I replied, shaking off the odd urge that washed over me. “Go away, will you?”
“I’m going.”
“Can’t wait not to see you again.” I sarcastically smiled.
He didn’t smile back.
Figured.
He flicked his thumb across his nose. “For the record, I don’t hate you, Goldie.”
“Why not?” I questioned as my heart did cartwheels and karate chops within my chest. “If you’d like, I’ll try harder to annoy you to get you to match my hatred.”
“No point in doing that. Hating people takes energy, and I don’t want to waste my energy on this.”
“You’re saying I’m not worth your energy?” I stood taller and placed my hands against my hips. “You’re saying I’m that worthless?”