Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“Yeah,” she agreed, head tilted a bit, and it didn’t occur to me why until I realized what I’d said.
We.
Like we were an item.
Christ.
Yeah.
Getting out of the apartment was probably the best for everyone involved. Being trapped together was giving me all sorts of fucked up ideas.
I mean, I didn’t even remember the last time I had a woman at my place. Hell, actually, I didn’t think I’d ever had one at this particular apartment. And I damn sure never had a woman stay more than a night. If that.
I wouldn’t have even thought I’d be okay with it until, suddenly, there was Millie.
With her little messes. And her cinnamon sugar scent. And her way of cocking her head and shooting me a bemused smirk when I knew I was kind of being a dick.
“What are you in the mood for?” I asked.
“I imagine you know the best restaurants. You pick. Obviously something kind of casual,” she said, waving toward her stack of clean clothes on the cabinet under the TV. “I don’t have fancy clothes.”
Casual was good.
Casual would help stop blurring these lines.
“Alright. I’ll be back,” I said, turning and making my way out of the apartment.
To go buy her a new fucking outfit.
Because I seemed determined to fuck up an already complicated situation.
I mean, I’d yet to even ask her about the attack, about why she was in the woods. Yet I was treating her like a damn girlfriend.
“What’s this?” Millie asked an hour later as I came in holding a garment bag.
“Something to wear,” I said. “The best places aren’t exactly casual,” I told her.
She moved toward me, her bruises fully covered, but she hadn’t put anything else on yet. She reached to undo the zipper to reveal the gray-blue dress I’d picked out, thinking it would look good with her eyes.
“I sized it up a little because you might want to wrap your ribs, since this’ll be the most moving around you’ve done since before you got hurt.”
“Smart thinking,” she said. “If I’m wearing a dress, does that mean you’re gonna wear a suit?” she asked, eyes all sparkling.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Oh, no reason,” she said in the fakest fucking voice possible as she took the garment bag, then the rest of her cosmetics, and moved into the bathroom.
__
I’d just finished slipping in my cufflinks when I heard her calling me from the bathroom.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, standing outside of the door.
“I need help,” she said.
“Help with what?” I asked, sliding open the door.
To immediately feel like she’d knocked the fucking wind out of me.
Because there she was.
In goddamn pink panties.
And nothing else.
Sure, she had her casted arm draped across her tits, but she was covering very little.
Honestly, I couldn’t tell you how long I just stood there. Staring. Not fucking breathing.
Before I finally realized she had several attached elastic bandages dangling from her other hand.
Seeing me look at it, she held it out to me. When she spoke, I couldn’t tell if her voice actually was breathy, or if it was my damn imagination. “I can’t do it myself,” she said.
“Right,” I said, and there was no mistaking the thick edge to my voice.
I reached for the strip of material.
And the second I pressed one end to her ribs on her good side, I could feel and hear the way her breath gasped inward.
I would go to hell for it, but I couldn’t stop my fingers from tracing the edge of the bandage as I started to pull it tight across her stomach, around her other ribs, behind her back, then around again.
A small tremble moved through her, making my gaze slide up to her face, finding her lips parted, her cheeks flushed, her eyes heavy-lidded.
I was already dealing with a semi, but that look on her face got me rock-hard in a fucking minute.
My stubborn eyes stayed on hers as I continued wrapping, moving my arms around her, pressing us close, then finishing the wrap with an unnecessarily long press on the velcro edge up high near her breast, my pinky finger teasing under the swell.
Another shiver moved through her at that, and I couldn’t seem to stop my fingers from doing it again, then drifting downward, playing at settling the bandage in place, before giving up the game entirely, letting my fingers drift over her belly, her hip, the side of her thigh.
At her soft little sigh, I exhaled hard.
“Fuck it,” I said, lowering down in front of her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Millie
I’d kissed him.
Was that incredibly stupid and reckless of me?
Oh, hell yes.
Was it worth the possible fallout, though?
God, yeah.
That man kissed with the intensity he seemed to do everything with. Like he took it seriously. Like nothing else in the world mattered while he was doing it.
His possessive hands cradling my face, his large body looming over me, his chest pressing to mine, his hard cock against my hip.