Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Marnie looks guilty as hell, as she should. If everything I’ve described—accurately, I might add—doesn’t make this woman’s hometown Crazy Town, USA, then I don’t know what would.
When she doesn’t speak, I throw up my hands in frustration and say, “Just tell me what I did that flipped your switch so suddenly that morning and also made you treat me like shit back there at the party. You wouldn’t even look at me, Marnie. What the fuck?”
“I’m sorry about that,” she mumbles. Her shoulders soften. “I actually came over to apologize to you for ignoring you at the table with my friends. That was totally uncalled for.”
“Oh, wow. Another about-face from you? Surprise, surprise.”
Anger sharpens her features. “Do you want to hear my apology or not, Max?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Sure.”
Marnie pauses like she’s choosing her words. “You did nothing wrong. I had a blast with you. While you were in the shower, however, I realized I was in a terrible place in my life. Emotionally. Mentally. Remember how I told you I’d lost my mother? Well, for reasons I can’t explain, I suddenly realized I hadn’t dealt with my grief—that, in fact, I was trying to numb the pain with pleasure. I panicked. I had a panic attack, basically, and I didn’t want to burden you with that or embarrass myself, so I left.”
My heart is hammering. I wish I didn’t feel sympathy for her, but I do. I wish my heart wasn’t softening, ever so slightly, at the pained look on her gorgeous face. But it is. “I’m sorry to hear all that,” I mutter reluctantly. “Grief can be a crazy thing. It can come up on you, suddenly, when you least expect it.”
She nods. “And as far as me giving you the silent treatment down there with my friends . . .” Her chest heaves. “That was a stupid attempt at self-preservation, and I’m very sorry.”
Aw, fuck. That same old heat is suddenly present in the air between us, despite how pissed I am at her. “Self-preservation in what way?”
Marnie twists her mouth. Her nostrils flare. “I knew if my eyes locked with yours for too long, especially when we were sitting so close, you’d be able to read me like a book. The night we got together, you said, ‘I can already read you like a book.’ Remember that? And I . . . I was worried that might still hold true.”
I do remember saying that to her. I remember everything about our night together, unfortunately. The details have been torturing me for the past year and a half.
I step forward, looking into Marnie’s eyes, and I suddenly feel like I can read her the same way I did back then. She wants me. Is that what Marnie didn’t want me to see in her eyes downstairs? I’m not sure how it’s possible this crazy woman is still attracted to me, given the way she’s treated me. If she wants me so fucking much, why hasn’t she bothered to contact me for the past year and a half? She easily could have contacted me through Grayson. And yet, there it is. Written all over her stunning face. Marnie wants me. And fuck my life, I want her, too.
I take another step forward and whisper, “What were you afraid of me reading on your face, Marnie?” My breathing is shallow. “Spell it out for me. I don’t have the time or energy to play your little mind games.”
Marnie takes a deep breath and shifts her weight. And then murmurs something under her breath that I can’t make out.
“Louder,” I bark. “I can’t hear you.”
She’s breathing hard now. Like she just finished running a hundred-yard dash. She tilts her head back and mutters a string of curses at the ceiling. And when she returns her face to mine, the look on her face says it all. The lust on her face is so brazen, in fact, it sends tingles straight into my dick.
“Oh,” I say, my eyebrow raised. “Are you planning to do something about that, Marnie?”
It’s all I need to say. In a flash, she’s hurling herself at me and throwing her arms around my neck, and I’m sliding my arms around her waist and smashing my hungry lips to hers. Quickly, I open her lips with mine and slip my tongue inside her mouth. And when her body responds like she’s gripping an electric fence, I deepen the kiss and devour her like she’s oxygen, and I’m a drowning man.
As our tongues dance and collide, as our bodies cleave together in primal lust, I feel electrocuted by my desire for this enigmatic woman. For over a year now, I’ve wondered what happened that morning. I’ve fantasized about her while jerking off. I’ve thrown myself into work and stopped going to bars and completely ignored my sex drive in the hopes I’d somehow be able to rid myself of the confusion, the yearning, the fucking hangover I’ve felt since Marnie walked out my door. Now that she’s here, and the reality of her tastes even better than my hottest memories and fantasies, all rationality is flying right out the window. In this moment, I don’t care if she’s a mind-fucker. A loose cannon. A sadist and a nut job. I want her. And, clearly, by the way she’s clawing at my neck and moaning and kissing me back, she feels exactly the same way. At least, in this moment. God only knows what will happen next.