Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81182 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81182 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“It’s nice.”
“I will warn you: all the furniture is just for looks. Unless you’re lying down on that couch, you’ll slide right off of it, and the chairs are just as bad. I think I’ve tipped over in them a dozen times. And the dining chairs have taken out more than one toe, so be careful when you’re walking from the kitchen to the living room barefoot.”
“Noted.” He smiles, and I turn back around and walk across the hall to my room, which unlike the rest of the house is all me. A king-size bed with my fluffy duvet and million pillows, along with my reading chair, where I spend a lot of time. “You can put your bag in here.” I open one of the built-in closet doors that reach the ten-foot ceilings and take up an entire wall. “Do you want to—”
I gasp when I’m suddenly knocked off my feet and my back hits the bed, his big body coming down on top of mine, with his knee settling between my legs.
Eyes sliding closed, I bite back a moan when he shoves his face into the crook of my neck, licking me there before taking a deep breath. “Christ, I even missed your smell.”
Latching onto his bicep with my fingers, I hook my leg over the back of his to hold onto him. Even if I’m too scared to admit it out loud, I missed this, his weight, the scent of him, the way he seems to silently demand that there never be an inch of space between us. When he pulls back and rests his elbow in the bed next to my head, my lashes flutter open to find his gaze roaming over my face as his hand cups my jaw.
“You got a text while I was on the train here,” he says, and my muscles bunch. I told Star I didn’t have my phone, but I don’t know if she remembered me telling her.
“From?”
“Benjamin.” His finger smooths across my cheek. “Since he apologized for screwing up with you and asked if you’d be willing to meet up to talk to him, I’m going to guess that he’s an ex.”
“You know, it’s really inappropriate that you keep looking at my messages.”
“Like you haven’t looked at mine?” he asks, and I press my lips together as he moves his hand to my ass.
He knows I’ve looked at his texts, because I told him about it after I opened them up. But in all fairness, it wasn’t my fault—or not really. It was that voice inside my head that is dead-set on proving he’s just like every other guy. That’s why, when a woman named Layla messaged him, and all I saw was there was a photo attached, I opened it up.
I expected it to be something explicit that would prove me right. Only, it wasn’t. It was just the image of a tear in the hull of a ship, with the added question, Do you think you’d be able to fix this?
When I told him about it, he said Layla works for the Marines, and they have done a few jobs together over the years, repairing boats and even submarines in deep water. He left it at that and didn’t give me a hard time about opening the text. The only thing he asked was that I send him her number, since he didn’t have it.
“That was different.” I run my fingers through his hair, pushing it back out of his face as his gaze roams mine. “Ben is the guy I was dating who I didn’t know was married,” I admit, and his expression turns hard. “I ran into him yesterday, and he told me he wanted to explain things.”
“And what did you say?”
“I laughed in his face and threatened to scream down the coffee shop if he didn’t get away from me.”
“Good girl.” He squeezes my ass.
“Was that the only message?”
“Yeah. Were you expecting another one?”
“Maybe.” I chew the inside of my cheek, then say quietly, “I thought Star might message me about tomorrow.”
“Your plans?” I nod. “You said you were going to explain that.”
“My friend Star’s husband’s brother is in town, and—”
“No,” he cuts me off before I can even finish.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.” I frown at him.
“You just said it, baby. Your friend, her husband, and his brother are doing something, and they want you to tag along. Which means wherever you’re going and whatever it is you’re doing, you will be with the brother. So, the answer is actually fuck no.”
“You can’t just decide that. And I already agreed to go.”
“You know you shouldn’t have agreed to go on a date.”
“It’s not a date.” I huff.
“It sounds exactly like a double date, babe.”
“It’s not. I made Star promise it’s not.”