Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Keeping a good distance from her, I follow Emelia to the bench. I resist touching her and pulling her to me, but we’re in her element now, and I will let her lead. She sits, and I place the bag next to her before leaning against the plexiglass and half wall of the rink. Folding my arms across my broad chest and crossing my ankles, I admire her precision and the delicate way she puts on her skates, lacing them up.
Her hair is slicked back into a low bun, her face free of makeup, showing the faintest sign of freckles. Emelia is wearing tight yoga pants that hug every inch of her like a second skin and a long-sleeved top that is just as tight, but it's cropped, showing me the slightest amount of skin. A peek of her upper stomach shows, and I see that freckle, the damn thing I want to kiss and lick all the time.
Focus, Nico. This is Emelia’s place.
She moves past me without a word and opens the gate to the rink. Before she steps in, she looks back to me, her eyes somehow looking brighter against her cold cheeks.“Do you skate?”
I shake my head. “No.”
Giving me an incredulous, curious look, she glides onto the ice and keeps talking to me.“So, you came here today just to watch me skate?”
“Yes.”
“Because that’s not creepy. That would make you a stalker.”
“I kill people and sell drugs and weapons. Stalking should be nothing to you,” I tell her, and she shakes her head, but as she does this, she does some sort of turn and slight jump in the air before landing on one foot and letting her other move easily behind her.
“What was that move?”
“A clockwise toe loop. It’s a simple jump.” She does it again, but this time, she does two circular movements in the air, before landing gracefully.
“Simple? I would fucking break my skull if I ever did that.”
“So if I ever wanted to kill you, I would just put you on ice?”
This time, I shake my head, my tongue gliding against my inner cheek to my bottom teeth before responding, “Funny, Emelia.”
She glides along the ice, alternating between facing forward and backward. It looks effortless for her, even as she starts a conversation. “I went to an ice skating competition with my mom, and I just fell in love. It looked liberating, freeing, and complicated all at once. Of course, I was only four at the time, so I just thought it was magical.” She smiles so damn wide, and I nearly match it.
“How come you never went professional with it?”
One brow quirks, then she is in the air again, doing three spins, making my jaw drop I’m so unexpectedly impressed.
“I’ll give you a guess. His name starts with a G, and he is the world’s biggest fucking asshole. Besides you.” She winks.
“Fair enough.” I will take that title. Means she doesn’t think I’ve gone soft, when clearly I have. She melts me inside all while adding fuel to a never-ending flame that was once just a sparking ember.
“He still let you do it as a hobby though?”
“Only because he thought it would be a good workout and that I would lose all this weight and be some skinny little thing, like all the women men desire. Joke’s on him. It only made my muscles bigger too.”
My insides burn. I feel the sting start in my head and travel viciously down my spine. Her body is perfect. It feeds men like me who are hungry, insatiable, constantly starving. That body was made to keep me coming back again and again, and though she radiates confidence and thrives in her skin, it still doesn’t make it okay that her father made her feel like she was something not worth desiring.
“How often did you do it when you lived back in New York?”
Emelia gains speed as she takes off for the other side of the rink, and before she gets there, she jumps up, lands, and starts spinning in place at a fast pace. Her back is arched, and one leg is angled at her other ankle that is attached to the foot still on the ice. My God, she is fucking good at this. She looks at peace, in her element. Fucking centered.
“I would go five days a week for three to sometimes ten hours each day.” She is now a little out of breath, and I see why. “Anything to get away from my family. They were suffocating and demanding and overbearing, but if I said I was going to work out at the rink, they practically leaped out of the way.” She meets me back at the half-wall door, and I watch her intently. She’s beautiful. Makeup-free. Flushed cheeks. And glowing in her element. Carefree… and just—free.