Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
I felt him laugh against me. I gently tugged at the back of his hair and he came up again to crush his lips to mine in a kiss.
I kissed him like I’d just won the fucking lottery. I buried my hands in his hair on each side of his head, holding him as I let my tongue slide out against his.
“So you say yes?” he said, breaking off for a moment before catching my lower lip between his teeth.
“I’ll think about it and have my assistant get back to you within twenty business days,” I joked.
“Dickhead.”
I laughed. “I desperately want to be your boyfriend, Rush,” I said. “And we can take time to figure out how the hell it works.”
He kissed me again, letting himself be exactly as possessive as he wanted, this time.
“Fuck,” he breathed against my lips, leaning back a little but still clutching at the back of my head. “Oh, God, Nathan is going to absolutely kill me.”
I hummed. “We don’t have to tell him if you’re not ready,” I murmured. “That can be a later step in the boyfriend process. Besides, what’s Nathan going to do anyway? We’re both adults. We’re both very into each other. He’ll be happy for us.”
Rush clicked his tongue. “You don’t know him like I do,” he said. “He’s always nice to you because you’re his baby brother. But Nathan and I have been in plenty of fights. And I know he’s punched guys to defend you before.”
I leaned in and boldly dragged the tip of my tongue along his Adam’s apple, slowly licking my way up to his mouth. “Then he’s going to have to fuckin’ fight us both,” I said, my voice low. “Now kiss me again.”
20
RUSH
“Come on in,” I called out over my blaring French music when I heard the knock at my door. I was in the kitchen, up to my elbows in chocolate, when Nathan and Charlie walked in hauling boxes of construction supplies.
“First off, it smells amazing in here,” Nathan said. “Second, since when do you listen to music that sounds like it belongs in a French cafe in the 60s?” He turned down the dial to a reasonable volume, and both of them walked over to look at what I was up to in the kitchen.
I hunched over, squinting down at the tray in front of me that was now half filled with tiny homemade chocolate truffles, still glistening from the heat. “Since I decided it was a good idea to work with melting chocolate. Who the hell does this? It’s impossible to keep this stuff at the right temperature.”
Charlie came over and glanced over the tray. “These truffles look incredible,” he said. “You made these?”
“Every single one,” I said. “Painstakingly. If you want to see the duds, look at the dining room table.”
Nathan laughed as he looked into the dining area. “Okay, those ones look like something the stray cat in my neighborhood would hack up.”
I straightened out my back, exhaling. “I’ve come a long way over the past two hours,” I said. “I’m not very good in the kitchen, but somehow, I thought chocolate would be easy.”
I had smudges of chocolate all over my hands, arms, and shirt, and there were more mixing bowls on my kitchen counter than there’d ever been before.
“I’m going to go start with the trench and gravel out back, but you owe me a sample of one of those when I get back in,” Charlie said, pointing at me before heading out to the backyard. This morning they were helping to set up my retaining wall planter, which was going to be all stone.
“Poor guy,” Nathan said softly after Charlie was outside. “He had a rough night.”
“More drama with his toxic ex?”
Nathan let out a low whistle, nodding at me. “Apparently, he got back together with Jim last night, had make-up sex, and then they broke up again four hours later. I love Charlie, but he has no idea he’s too good for that guy.”
“Holy shit,” I said, heading over to the kitchen sink to wash off all of the chocolate. “Do I even want to ask what went wrong in those four hours?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” Nathan said. “What about you, though? What’s all this chocolate about? You must have been up early to do all of this.”
I cleared my throat, picking up a towel to dry my hands off. “Well, I’m… dating someone. And he mentioned he likes chocolate, so I overnighted a shipment of Callebaut from San Francisco, because I wanted the best.”
“Back up, back up,” Nathan said, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms. “I don’t care what brand of chocolate you got. You just said you’re dating someone? Like, fucking someone, or…?”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. Why did I suddenly feel like I had a caged bird flapping around inside my chest? I hadn’t even told Nathan I was dating his brother, and already I felt like I’d been caught doing something wrong.