Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
For her own safety.
Chapter 10
Simone
I walk catlike through the house, knowing I can’t avoid the several creaky spots. It’s 2:30 A.M., I’m dead tired from my shift at Lulu’s, and both Van’s and Lucas’s cars are parked out on the street. Lucas told me he was staying in tonight. I hope that’s true. This morning while I was munching on some cereal, wondering where in the hell Van had gone, Lucas came out of his room. He looked tired, but I couldn’t detect any shame on him.
So I asked. “Did you screw that blonde?”
He glared at me before he poured himself a cup of coffee. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”
“Oh, thank God,” I said, and then beamed a smile at him. “I’m proud of you.”
“Whatever,” he muttered as he sat down at the table with me.
“I’m sorry about last night,” I told him. “About that thing with Van. I was just trying to shock you and stop you from doing something stupid.”
I told Lucas this, of course, to protect Van from any fallout should my brother become suspicious.
Luckily, Lucas nodded. “I figured as much. Van isn’t exactly the make-out kind of guy.”
God, no, he isn’t. He’s the type to throw me facedown on the bed and fuck me with his clothes still on.
“Maybe you should stop the partying for a while,” I gently suggested. “It leads to bad decisions.”
I was surprised when he let out a long sigh and said, “Yeah…I know. I’m just going to lay low until we get through the play-offs.”
When I’d gone to work tonight, Van still hadn’t made an appearance, and Lucas was on the couch. He said he was going to call it an early night, and his bedroom seems quiet behind his closed door. I note that Van’s room appears dark from under the door and just as quiet.
I wonder if he sleeps naked.
Regardless, I turn left into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. I pile my hair up on top of my head and strip while I let the shower warm up. The hot water works out the kinks in my body, I scrub myself down with my favorite body wash, and then I shave. After drying off, I slather my body with my favorite body cream, which smells of lilacs and vanilla, and then eyeball the pajamas sitting on the vanity that I had put in here before I’d left to go to work. With my suitcases still in Lucas’s room, I always make sure to put my after-shower essentials in here before I leave for my shift.
The PJ’s are nothing more than a cotton pair of shorts and a tank top, but as I consider Van in the next room—a man who told me less than twenty-four hours ago I’d lost my shine—I’m thinking they’re a wasted effort.
I want to make him eat his words tonight.
Still, I reach into my toiletry bag and pull out something I’d stowed in there earlier today. Clutching the condom in my hand, I’m armed and ready to go.
With the towel wrapped around me, I quietly open the bathroom door and look left to Lucas’s room. Van’s is directly across the hall from me and I tiptoe my way there, thankful Lucas is generally a heavy sleeper.
Still, we’ll need to be quiet.
The minute I open it, the door to Van’s room lets out a dull squeak that causes me to wince. When I step in, the same squeak is issued as I shut the door. My eyes start to quickly become accustomed to the darkness made easier by the moonlight filtering in the open blinds beside Van’s bed.
“Don’t even think about it,” he growls softly from the bed, and I can actually see the moonlight glinting from his eyes as they stare at me.
“Don’t even think about what?” I whisper as I drop the towel from my body.
“Get out, Simone,” he whispers harshly as I walk to the bed.
“You don’t want that,” I say confidently.
“Jesus fuck,” Van hisses at me as he sits up in bed with his back against the headboard, and I can just make out his naked torso with the sheets pulled up over his lap. “Your brother is across the hall.”
“I know you heard my loud side already because you know I’m quite a screamer,” I tell him as I raise one leg and place my knee on the edge of the bed. “But I promise…I can be very, very quiet.”
Van’s hand shoots out and he clamps it on my wrist, squeezing hard enough he has my attention. “Simone…you need to stay away from me. I am not a nice man and I will hurt you.”
Now that I just don’t believe. Sure he’s cranky as fuck and a complete introvert, and sure he was not gentle with me last night, but I’ve seen enough of Van Turner to know that I’m safe with him. I refuse to let my heart get involved, and he makes my body feel fucking fantastic, even with his rough handling. I’m more than good.