Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 85453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“So you could happily declare your vegan status now?”
I laugh. “Yeah, I guess I could.” After taking a moment to relish his easy grin, I shift my focus back to the manliest display of masculinity I’ve ever seen. “What’s with all trophies? Are you overcompensating for something?”
He clutches his chest. “Ouch…. especially considering you saw how low the nurse had to swoop to take it all in.”
“I wasn’t looking at her.” Heat spreads across my chest. “I wasn’t looking at anything.”
“Sure, sure, Einstein.” After dragging his index finger down the imaginary dip in my nose, he heads back to bed. “I guess you could say I’m willing to do anything that won’t make me an academic.”
I twist to face him, my movements unsteady. “Why would you want to take away from that? Having a brilliant mind should be cherished.”
Some could say I’m stroking his ego because it was so badly damaged today, but that isn’t the case. Every word I’m speaking is gospel. Cash is a smart man. He just has trouble taking facts off a sheet of paper. The instant we started using them in real-life settings, his understanding grew tenfold.
Just as the silence becomes excruciating, Cash ends it. “My father is a brilliant man, but his life isn’t close to glorious.”
“Says you.” When he peers at me with quirked brows, I add, “Happiness is a state of mind depending on how you view it. If you’re a negative Nancy, everything sucks. But if you’re an optimist, the sun—”
“Shines out your ass.”
“I was going to say the sun never stops shining, but yeah, your theory works too.”
His laugh slackens the tension on his face. “You say apples. I say oranges.”
“Or eggplants, depending on the day.”
This time, his chuckle fully relaxes the lines grooved in his forehead. “I can laugh now, but earlier tonight…” he rakes his fingers through his chin-length hair, “… I seriously thought my cock was about to drop off.
With his room devoid of another piece of furniture to sit on, I plop my backside onto his bed. “And now?”
“Now.” He takes a moment to ponder. “Now I’m reasonably sure we need to get you a cell phone.”
“I don’t need a cell.”
“Ah, yeah, you do. It took me two hours to track down Eden’s number.”
He won’t get any sympathy from me. “I live a couple of blocks down from you.”
I laugh so hard I snort when he says, “If I weren’t afraid of gravel rash, I would have walked to your dorm, but since I am—” He stops when nothing but rowdy giggles fill his room. “Why are you laughing? My cock almost strangled itself to death.”
I laugh even harder.
“McKayla…”
He glares and glares and glares until my laughter becomes contagious.
“It wasn’t fucking funny at the time,” he barks out between fits of laughter. “I thought I was going to have to star in one of those alien pornos to make a living after college.”
Cash’s eyes snap to mine when I mutter, “You’ll need more than one dick for that.” When he stares at me with his mouth gaped open, I say, “Well, I assume. I’ve not watched alien porn.”
“Yes, you have!”
He attacks my ribs with his torturous fingers, making it extremely hard to deny his claims. “I haven’t. I swear.” His fingers freeze on my right ribcage when I push out, “I read it in a book.”
“They have alien porn in books?”
It takes a couple of seconds to settle my heart rate enough to respond, and even then, it is only a feeble head bob.
“And you read it?”
There’s something different about his tone.
It is deeper and makes my belly tight.
It dawns on me how close we’re laying when my head bob means I feel him cursing under his breath instead of hearing it. In a normal setting, with an appropriate distance between each person, I wouldn’t have heard him utter God’s name in vain. But since he is right here, practically lying on top of me, I felt every delightful syllable.
I realize Cash isn’t the only one with extra spit lining his throat. His index finger traces the faint inner workings of my pharynx a second before his thumb counts the crazy beats of my heart.
“Your heart is racing again,” he murmurs, stating the obvious. “Does reading alien porn make you that hot, Einstein?”
Before my heart can talk me out of it, I shake my head.
The thudding of my pulse has nothing to do with my summer reading material, and everything to do with how close we’re lying. It seems as if we’re back in the paintball arcade, and I’m seconds from making a fool of myself for the second time. Except, instead of evading disaster, I encourage it. I push out my breasts, lick my dry lips, then return his stare.
Excluding today, I’ve never laid this close to a man before, and although his swollen anatomy could be responsible for the thickness brushing against my thigh, my head and heart are on the same team for a change.