Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
“I’d be a sick freak if I noticed you then, Lauren,” I tell her.
“I know. I get that. But it doesn’t change how I felt. And since then, honestly, I’ve had a crush on you. And by sort of…I mean a lot.”
She looks at me, quickly turning like she has to or she’ll overthink it. While staring at me, her lips shake as she speaks. “I knew it was wrong every second. But it didn’t, doesn’t change how I felt – feel. It’s something I never thought could happen, you and me.”
She presses her hands together, sighing through clenched teeth. “I want you to know it matters to me. This. Whatever’s happening here.”
“It doesn’t affect how I feel,” I say. “So what? You had a crush on me. It doesn’t change a thing.”
To begin with, she bites her lip, the gesture that drove me so feral. Even now, it causes lust-filled scenes to flare up in my mind.
But I force myself to look past it, sink into the intimacy, and give my woman the respect she needs.
“How do you feel?” she asks. “What are we doing, exactly? I feel like, normally, we’d have time to figure it out. But….”
She averts her gaze again as though confidence is clashing endlessly with her natural instincts—her virginal nerves.
I know what she’s going to say without her needing to.
She needs to know what we’re building precisely because if it collapses, it will take her dad with it.
Unless….
The right man, Julian said.
I look up as the blades come to a stop, noticing the pilot standing from his chair, raising his hand as he walks over.
“I guess it’s time to pretend,” Lauren says, pushing at the helicopter door, then huffing when it doesn’t open.
I lean past her and find the handle. “It’s just here.”
She stares into my eyes, the angle bringing us inches from each other, her body so close I can smell her scent.
She smiles sarcastically, but it’s a front. The pain glistens in her eyes.
“Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome,” I say, ignoring the sarcasm.
I should tell her now. How I really feel and what I want for her future.
I could make the pilot wait.
But I don’t.
Opening the helicopter door, I hop out.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Lauren
I squeeze onto the metal beam, tightening my grip as though it will stop my legs from feeling like jelly.
The safety officer, a man called Steven, checks us both respectfully.
We’re strapped together, my man with me in the front. It’s even more difficult than I imagined to act normal, with my man’s firm body pushing against me from behind.
He didn’t answer my question in the helicopter, but he didn’t freak out about the crush either.
Silas has one arm resting on the beam beside me, so his bicep brushes right up against my ear. I’m closed in on multiple sides by him, making the rumbling of the plane a little easier to bear as we stand in the rear section.
“The back will be opening up soon,” Silas says, his voice close to my ear over the sounds of the plane. “The whole world is beneath us. Freedom, Lauren, just you and me.”
His voice is just for me as Steven moves away, having completed his final checks.
My belly is a swirling mass of crazy-winged butterflies, nerves cutting me, trying to tell me I can’t do this.
“You can do this.”
Silas’ voice is unflinching in my ear, growing somehow louder as the large entrance starts to open, like the back of the plane is splitting away.
“I’m not sure I can.” My words sound like they’re choking on something as I struggle to get my breathing under control. “I’ve never been into this stuff. Why the hell did I even agree to this?”
“Think of our children,” he says. “They’ll need you to be strong one day. You’ll have to be tough, as brave as I know you can be.”
Our children.
Did he say our….?
“We’ll make a deal,” he goes on as the back of the plane splits away, revealing the blue sky and the green fields below. “Jump with me, and I’ll tell you how I feel.”
“Window’s closing for a safe landing,” Steven yells.
“Lauren?”
“Deal,” I yell, closing my eyes tightly as Silas lets go of the beam and brings us forward.
I’m screaming so hard my throat hurts as the plane suddenly tips up, causing out there to become down there.
We rush toward the ground faster than I can believe, and then I hear Silas laughing, piercing the hammering of my heartbeat in my ears.
“Wooooh!” he yells as we soar closer and closer to the ground. “Woooo!”
I start screaming with him, laughing for some reason, more scared than I’ve ever been and suddenly knowing we can do this. My man and I can do anything, soar anywhere.
“I’m opening the chute,” he yells in my ear. “Brace.”
I grip my harness as he opens the parachute. It catches the wind and holds us aloft, slowing us down to where it feels like we’re sailing through the air slowly.