Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 68431 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68431 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“Again. And this time memorize it,” he said sharply.
She closed her eyes and envisioned the numbers in a futile attempt to make them stick—whatever the hell they meant. “Seventy-five—nineteen—sixty-three.”
“Good,” he nodded. “Now turn around, open the safe, and I’ll show you where your passport will be kept from now on.”
She swung around and immediately noticed the safe, now that he had pointed it out. The numbers flew out of her head as she looked back at him in question. He was entrusting his personal documents to her? His passport undoubtedly, and everything else one would keep in a locked safe? She had access to her passport if she wanted it? He’d purposely scared her for no reason? Christ—she didn’t know if she was relieved or—or what exactly?
She stood completely still, her nerves pitched to a higher degree.
He studied her as his lips twisted a bit. “Open it.”
“I—I can’t.”
“Why not?”
She racked her brain for the numbers. Normally she was good with numbers, but the situation she was in? She could barely think straight, let alone remember a string of unrelated numbers. It began with seventy-five, for sure. “You’ve made me nervous. Usually I—”
Her voice trickled to a halt as she felt the heat of his body behind her, his hands landing on her hips. Instinctively, she looked at the numbered dial. She’d grown up with a safe in the house, but was never allowed to touch it when her father was alive—and after his death, she’d never had a reason to.
He walked her forward, his legs pushing hers until there was nowhere else to go—and no space at all between her spine and his chest. He wrapped one arm around her waist as his mouth dropped to her ear. “Have you ever unlocked one before?”
“No.”
His hand slid up from her stomach until he was palming her breast again. “But you had a locker at school when you were a kid, right?”
“I—I did,” she stuttered, his words tickling her ear as his intimate touch scattered her nerves. “But it didn’t have a lock on it.”
“Why the hell not?”
“It was a private school—parochial.”
As if that answered his question as she’d meant it to, he said, “Ahh. So now you learn.” His hand trailed down to her stomach again, his thumb resting between her breasts and his pinky searching for and finding her navel through the thin material of her shirt. Heat traced down her spine as she stared unseeingly at the safe in front of her. His mouth came to her ear again. “I’m going to show you, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered. Lord, after the scare he’d given her and then the relief, she’d let him show her just about anything.
Holding her enclosed within the circle of his arms, his hands landed on the dialing mechanism. She was forced all the way into his arms, his biceps enclosing her shoulders. “Start at zero. Spin it four times to the left and stop at seventy-five.” As he gave the instructions, his hands mirrored his words. “Now turn it three times to the right and stop at nineteen.”
“Okay,” she agreed, even though it was his fingers dancing over the dial. She couldn’t take her eyes off his hands—they were gorgeous. Strong, tanned, masculine. Her pulse began spinning in triple time.
“And now two times to the left again stopping on . . . what number, Erin?”
She had no clue. She had only one thought banging around in her brain—this had to be some kind of a trick. He was trying to make her feel safe by showing her that she wasn’t his prisoner. She didn’t believe it. She could feel the edge of danger around him even now. A million bucks said he’d remove her passport from the safe later. He wouldn’t leave it there for her to be able to take back—would he?
He tipped her chin around with a finger until his eyes were able to catch hers. “You don’t remember, do you?”
Her heart was banging wildly. “No,” she admitted on a whisper of breath.
He bent down and kissed her lips. Quickly. Just one small nip of her lips before he lifted his head again. “Answer this question, Erin, before we go any further. I’m showing you how to get in the safe . . . why?”
Agitated, she breathed heavily, knowing she was supposed to give him an answer. “Because . . . because my passport is in there.”
He shook his head. “That’s only part of it. Try again.”
She worried her bottom lip. “I don’t know.”
His eyes landed on her lips and his nostrils flared before snaring her gaze with his again. “Because you’re my wife. What’s mine is yours—understand that? And I want you to feel safe here—and if access to your damn passport helps you to feel more secure, then you need to have that.”