Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 112917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
“Chickened out.”
He leaned in and kissed me, tender at first but then more hungrily. I let myself enjoy it. Let myself float away on the fantasy he offered. Let myself feel every caress and stroke of his big hands on my body.
Until I realized he was rubbing a hole into the skin of my lower back with his thumb.
“Let me go,” I said, wriggling out of his grip.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was trying to get it off.”
“Fine, try to wash it off, but then you can Sharpie over it again. Draw me another angry saw blade or whatever. But then we’re getting to work. I want the video footage and the time stamps from my watch. Not that many people managed to touch me, Bear. And I think they were all people we know.”
I retrieved the soap and handed it to him while I washed and rinsed my hair. He scrubbed the stamp but gave up quickly. We both knew it wasn’t coming off with soap.
By the time I hopped out and dried off, I was a man on a mission. “Call Violet. She should still be awake in LA.”
Bear watched me cautiously as I moved to the other room to root out his laptop and hand it to him. “Pull up the footage. I’m going to get Lou in here.”
“Do not open that door.” His deep voice would have made my dick hard if I wasn’t so distracted. “Text her.”
I pulled out my phone. “Fine.”
Another stamp. Come to the suite for strategy sesh.
Then I went back to Bear’s bag and pulled out the Sharpie before smacking it in his palm and turning around.
I hadn’t put on a shirt yet, had only yanked on some baggy pajama pants, so he had full access to cover the mark.
The tip of the marker was cold, and it prickled my skin with goose bumps. This time, he took a little longer, and when I insisted he take a photo again, he looked a little sheepish.
“I told you. I suck at drawing.”
I stared at the… “Mitten that’s missing a thumb?” I asked. He narrowed his eyes and looked at the phone screen. “Santa’s pack?” He made a little growly noise in his throat. “Upside-down chef’s hat?”
“It’s a honey pot! How can you not see it’s…” He tilted his head and pointed at the black, shapeless blob. “It’s a honey pot. Like in Winnie the Pooh.”
I blinked at him. Fuck, he was adorable. Emotion welled up and filled my eyes. Had anyone ever cared for me like Bear did?
“It’s a honey pot,” he insisted again, firming his jaw.
I opened my mouth to tell him I loved him—that he was the kindest, sweetest, biggest-hearted man I knew—when the squealer alarm went off from the security wedge and Lou’s muffled curses filled the space where she’d tried to open the door.
Bear quickly tossed his hoodie at me, and I yanked it on. He pulled the wedge out and turned it off, saving our ears from complete annihilation.
We spent the next hour scrolling through grainy surveillance video. Violet provided occasional updates from the speaker of Lou’s phone, while members of the team in California moved in and out of the conference room she was in.
“How did you let people near him?” she kept asking. “There was a no-touching policy. Do you people need retraining?”
She’d already apologized profusely to me on behalf of the team and explained she would be notifying the label and letting them know every update. It was excruciating to watch Bear and Lou have to sit there and take the reprimands when I knew it hadn’t been that easy in person. How did you tell the king of a country they weren’t allowed to shake hands with a lowly guitar player?
According to the video, at least five people had touched my lower back. One of them had clearly done it over my clothes, but the rest were impossible to see because of the crowd.
Alana Vasa, the violinist, had hugged me around the waist when we’d greeted each other.
Little Carina had thrown herself at me.
Gisella, the queen, had steadied herself on my back when she’d teetered in her heels.
Bodhi had put his hand on my shoulder, neck, and back. But the one on my back was clearly seen as being over my clothes. After realizing just how many places Bodhi had touched me, I glanced at Bear.
His jaw was clenched, and his nostrils flared. Thankfully, I knew he’d examined the rest of my naked body in the shower to make sure the stamp we’d seen was the only one.
Noelle had put her hand on my lower back. I remembered that.
“That royal guard touched him,” Lou said, nodding at the video while she scribbled a note.
“Kasper can’t be our Stamper,” Bear said, reaching to speed up the feed. “Besides, he was way too busy stressing about the king’s security. Apparently, there’ve been some threats recently. Kasper didn’t want them leaving Ventdestine at all.”