Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 73230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
“You want to bet?” I challenged him.
“You were looking at my scars,” he hissed.
I laughed in his face.
“I don’t even know what ‘scars’ you are talking about. All I’m able to see,” I said, lifting my hand and placing it just under his nipple. “Are your fucking piercings. Wanna know why?” I asked.
He looked at me with raised brows, not answering.
He didn’t believe me.
And I smiled, crisscrossing my hands across my chest to each lower corner of my shirt, and I pulled it up and over my head.
I caught my bra along the way and bared my upper torso. I nearly laughed at the stunned look on his face.
“Now, do you see why I like your pierced nipples so much?” I asked.
He lifted his arm from the door frame, but I stepped back before he could touch.
“No touching,” I said. “These babies are only for people who like me.”
He looked up at me, his storm gray eyes clashing with my brown ones, and stared.
“What makes you think I don’t like you?” he asked.
I tossed him my shirt to hold while I maneuvered my sports bra back on, then held out my hand impatiently while I waited for him to give me my shirt.
He kept it.
“Casten,” I snapped.
“Answer me,” he ordered, pulling the t-shirt behind his back when I went to grab for it.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“I’m only going off the vibe I get when you’re around me. You practically scream, ‘Don’t touch me!’ And I don’t want to even get into the fact that you had some woman hanging all over you the day you asked me to go to that wedding with you,” I crossed my arms, glaring really hard.
I was sure that’d make him give it back.
Because I’ve heard my glare could peel bark off a tree.
I was known as Coach Kickass to the students at the school, and I kind of liked it.
Casten, though, didn’t seem to be affected in the least.
I frowned. He must be immune because he was more of a badass than me.
“I’m not dating her…and I haven’t fucked her,” he chuckled.
I wanted to laugh.
“Out of all that I said, you got that I cared that you fucked her?” I tilted my head to study him.
He glared back.
And yep. His glare was better that mine, too.
Times ten.
Or maybe times two hundred and seventy.
“Are you feeding me, or should I go sit down? I’m tired,” I groaned, crossing my arms over my chest.
He handed me my t-shirt, albeit reluctantly.
I slipped it on, not missing the way his eyes lingered on my chest.
“Now, where are these scars you speak of?” I asked.
He turned around, and I managed to withhold the gasp that wanted to burst from my lungs.
His back was terrible.
It looked like a hunk of his left shoulder was just gone.
Like some shark had come and bit a chunk out of him.
He had other scars, too, but they weren’t anywhere near as bad as the one on his shoulder.
“Satisfied?” he asked, watching me in the mirror that I just realized was there.
I shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”
He laughed humorlessly.
“You have not,” he challenged.
I shrugged.
“My best friend in the world, when I was sixteen, was burned in a house fire. He lived, but couldn’t live with his scars after it was all said and done. Killed himself when I was seventeen,” I blurted.
That painful memory ripped through me.
Jet Jones had been my best friend in the whole wide world.
He’d been my confidant. My first lover. My everything.
I thought that Jet and I would be together forever.
Then the fire had happened. And the Jet that came out of that fire wasn’t the same man that went into it to save me.
He was scarred, and he couldn’t see past the way he looked.
He pushed me away. Pushed everyone away.
And suddenly I just wasn’t hungry anymore.
All I wanted to do was lay in bed, maybe take a couple of pain pills…and forget.
“I think I need to go lay down,” I whispered.
Casten had just reached up over his head to thread his hands through his t-shirt when I spoke.
Slowly, he stopped what he was doing, the t-shirt only hanging around his neck, and stared at me.
“You not feeling good?”
He sounded worried.
I shook my head. “No. I need to lay down.”
And with that, I left him, doing what I did best.
Retreating.
Painful memories clashed within me later that night, turning my usually bad dreams into terrifying nightmares.
I guess speaking Jet’s name out loud made my dreams even more vivid than they usually were.
My relationship with Jet was all giggles and rainbows at first…until it just…wasn’t.
Chapter 6
They should put more Oreos in a package…that way there’s enough for two people.
-Tasha’s secret thoughts
Tasha
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Jet asked me as we laid on the blanket in our fort.