Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
We reach the top of the stairs, walk a small hallway, and then enter a stunning room. The bed is an oversized king, with an extremely large flatscreen on the wall, several chairs here and there, and a couch in front of a window that does indeed seem to sport a better view than the one in the living room. He motions that direction. “Check out the view.” He leads me forward, past the bed, which I do not look at, and when we would sit down on the couch, I step to the window and press my hand to the glass. The ocean is below us, stretching wide, but we’re now at the right angle to spy the outline of a mountain.
“Volcano,” he says, standing next to me. “Don’t ask me the name. I should know, but I don’t. Just that it’s not erupted in our lifetime.”
I glance over at him. “Let’s hope it doesn’t choose now.”
“I figure if it does, it’s meant to be. There’s fate to a lot of things in life.”
“You believe in fate?”
“Yes, but don’t tell anyone. I have them all convinced they can change anything they put their minds to.”
“So, you don’t think you can?”
“I think you can if you’re supposed to.”
I rotate to face him, and him me. “Then why put in the effort?”
“I still believe there are two options. Right or left. Like you deciding to come here with me when you could have said no. In some way, shape, or form, every decision we make affects the future.”
“Every decision?”
“Yes. Every decision. That’s why they all matter.”
A doorbell rings, as strange as that is in a hotel room, and he brushes his fingers over my cheek, the touch lifting the hair on the back of my neck and clenching my sex. That’s how ridiculously aware I am of Ethan. “That will be the liquid courage we ordered,” he says, his hand sliding away.
The funny thing is that as I stand here and talk to him, I’ve relaxed a bit and started to feel comfortable with him and in my own skin again. I really don’t even want him to leave to go downstairs. What if all my nerves start all over again? I want to reach for him and pull him back, but he’s already stepped around me and the couch to head for the door.
I turn to watch him leave, and it takes me a minute to realize this is my chance to run to the bathroom. I quickly race around the couch, head into the all-white bathroom, and shut the door. I don’t even give myself time to use this escape to turn into a ball of nerves again. I do what I came in here to do, and wash up, but pause to inspect my appearance. My lipstick is gone, kissed away by the hottest man I’ve ever known. It’s a pretty good way for a girl to lose her lipstick, I decide.
There are footsteps outside the door, and I rotate toward the sound.
If I stay in here long, he’ll suspect I’m undressing or planning something sexy that is way above my experience and confidence grade. I open the door and find him by the window, setting the drinks on a table I didn’t even notice. I walk toward him, and he rounds the couch to meet me halfway. “The whiskey is downstairs. I didn’t have enough hands.”
“Please don’t go back downstairs,” I whisper, “because I really don’t need liquid confidence. I just need to—be with you, like we were by the window.”
His eyes warm, and he catches my waist with his hands, and yes—oh yes—this is what I need. I’m alive again in all the right ways, the adrenaline surging through my body about him, not me. Him touching me, giving me nothing but him to think about is right, and the nerves are wrong. “Do you know what I like?” he asks.
“Me, I hope.”
He laughs, and it’s another one of his low, sexy rumbles from deep in his chest that plays a wicked number on my body. “I do like you. Come try the strawberries, and then I’ll show you how much.”
He catches the fingers of one of my hands with the fingers of one of his and leads me to the couch. When we sit, he holds out the tray of strawberries. I wave them off. “If I eat that and spill it all over me—”
“I promise to lick it off.”
I suck in a breath at his bold words, my nipples puckering with the idea he might lick me there. But I still wave off the strawberry. “No, but you can tell me what you were going to say a few minutes ago. What do you like?”
He sets the tray down and settles his hand on my leg. “I like that you have never done this before.”