Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
The caption read, Country music star Pixie Hart was spotted at a Starbucks in northern Michigan with a mystery man. What will Duke say???
I rolled my eyes. Duke could fuck right off.
I studied the picture for another minute. It had obviously been taken by a photographer with a long-range lens and then sold to Splash. It wasn’t just a fan who happened to see her at Starbucks. Given the previous leak with her security, it made me wonder who all knew she was up here. And how trustworthy they were.
Exhaling, I ran a hand through my hair and stood up, heading for the house.
She wasn’t in the living room, and I didn’t see her in the kitchen either. For a few scary heartbeats, I wondered if I’d been so distracted out there, I hadn’t noticed her sneak out in her running clothes. Had she given me the slip again?
Then I heard her strumming chords on her guitar from the direction of the bedroom. As silently as I could, I slipped down the hall and listened for a moment. She began to sing softly, and chills swept down my arms.
I recognized the song, so I knew it wasn’t one of hers—something about why’d you come in here looking like that—but she wasn’t playing it how I remembered it. Her version was slower and sadder, like she was squeezing all the joy out of it.
Feeling guilty, I swallowed hard, then raised my hand to knock. But the next second, the music stopped and I heard her say, “Fuck you, Xander Buckley.”
Shit—I’d been caught eavesdropping. I dropped my arm and squared my shoulders, prepared for her to open the door and take me to task.
But instead, she just kept on talking. “You’re no different than any other man in my life, trying to cage me up and tell me what I can and cannot do. Or what I should do to fix things. Well, you don’t know me at all. You don’t know anything.”
Offended, I pressed my lips together. I was guilty of some of that stuff, but I was also kinda mad that she thought I didn’t know anything. I knew some things.
My arm shot up again, and I almost knocked.
“And fuck you for being hot too.”
My hand stopped mid-air, my knuckles an inch from the door. She thought I was hot? I grinned. So when she yanked the door open a moment later, that’s what she saw—me standing there smiling with a fist raised.
She yelped and clutched her chest. “Xander! Stop lurking!”
“Sorry.” Playing it cool, I dropped my hand like I hadn’t heard anything. “I just came in to see when you wanted to take that run.”
“Now.” She was already dressed in shorts and a sports bra. “Are you ready to go?”
“I just need a minute to change.”
“Well, hurry up,” she said tersely, shouldering past me toward the living room without so much as brushing against my shirt.
I watched her drop to the floor between the couch and the fireplace and start some kind of stretching routine. An apology for what I’d said earlier was on the tip of my tongue, but I got distracted when she bent forward over her straight, outstretched legs. Damn, she was flexible. Her nose was between her shins. Her breasts were resting just above her knees.
She spoke without looking at me. “You said a minute. You’re down to thirty seconds.”
Springing into action, I strode over to my bag, grabbed some workout clothes, and went into the bathroom. After I’d swapped my jeans for sweats and boots for running shoes, I couldn’t resist peeking into the shower.
Immediately, I spied the vibrator.
It was dark pink, tall and thick, and it had what looked like a long-necked rabbit curving from the base of the shaft. What the fuck was that? And how was a regular dick supposed to compete?
I glanced down at my crotch. I felt pretty good about my size and stamina, and I definitely knew my way around a woman’s body, but that contraption was giving me a bit of a complex.
And how did she use it? Standing up? Lying down? Kneeling above it? My eyes closed and images swam in the darkness, my cock surging to life.
Fuck you for being hot too.
I knew exactly how she felt.
From the front of the house, the door slammed. My eyes flew open, and I yanked the shower curtain back into place and hurried outside, tossing my jeans and boots on top of my bag on the way.
She was standing on the porch, twisting her torso from right to left.
More twitching in my pants. Uncomfortable tightness.
“You shouldn’t be outside alone,” I told her in my bossiest voice, to remind myself what I was—and wasn’t—supposed to be doing here. “Paparazzi know you’re in town. There’s already a photo of us from the parking lot this morning online.”