Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 116362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Damn.
I should have a weapon.
I grab a magazine from the coffee table and roll it halfway into a scoop.
We both edge forward.
Peer over the island.
There he is.
Sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor.
But I swear he’s on his haunches and hissing.
Like the bastard is waiting for us.
Come closer, he seems to say. Come closer, my friend.
Since he’s from Chile, he has the accent and everything.
“Now what?” Amanda asks, gripping her plunger.
“Well, I guess since we can’t kill him, we can’t manhandle him either.”
“So I can’t bat him across the room? Because that spider in Home Alone put up with a lot.”
“No,” I tell her with a disappointed sigh. “They’re delicate. If you were to handle him and drop him, he could die.”
“Accidents happen,” she says slowly.
Man, do I love this woman’s brain.
I’m smiling but I shake my head and quickly wipe it off my face.
“No. Think of Kevin.” I’m saying it more for myself.
I creep forward.
She creeps forward.
Fluffy turns to her.
She freezes.
He turns to me.
I freeze.
Amanda makes her move.
She comes at him with the plunger from behind, getting him moving.
He comes scuttling toward me on those fuzzy eight legs.
Somehow I lower the magazine and he crawls right onto it.
Now I’m holding the magazine at eye level and Fluffy is sitting on it and I’m screaming silently, mouth open and everything.
A living nightmare.
“Get him to his cage!” Amanda yells.
I’m naked, with Fluffy balancing on a magazine, and somehow I make my way down the hall, to the study, and place the entire magazine inside, my hands shaking nonstop.
I withdraw my arms in shock and Amanda quickly puts the lid back on as Fluffy scampers into one of his logs to hide.
“Okay,” she says, taking in a deep breath, “you say he’s an escape artist, but you left the damn lid off.”
I blink. “Shit. I guess I was too preoccupied to pay attention.” I give her a look. “With you.”
She frowns. “If you’re trying to be sweet…”
“It’s true. I normally don’t forget to put the bloody lid on. If anything, it’s all your fault for being enticing.”
She rolls her eyes but grins. She takes my hand. “Come with me, naked and afraid man.”
Right. The naked thing.
Everything that’s happened post-sex hasn’t been my finest moment. No wonder the women are only around for one night.
But Amanda leads me back into the bedroom.
And even though I swear I’ll never be able to shake what happened, she’s pretty good at making me forget.
CHAPTER 14
Amanda
It takes me a few moments to realize where I am. There’s a cushiony duvet wrapped around me, and under that, a warm, heavy arm around my side.
Blake’s arm.
Oh my god.
I wasn’t even drunk last night but it’s all coming back to me now in flashes.
Hot, filthy flashes.
Jesus O’Malley.
I feel like I’ve been hit by a big giant sex bus.
The things he did.
The things we did.
His tongue.
His cock.
Getting caught by the librarian.
Speeding away from the school, laughing, nervous, the stars above us, feeling so fucking crazy.
Coming back here, having him fuck me mercilessly again until I thought I was a prism, shattering with colors.
Then of course Fluffy.
I try not to think about that.
I turn my head to look at Blake, his face smashed into the pillow next to me, deep asleep. Like most people he looks different when he’s sleeping. Younger. Vulnerable. Sweet. Though I know Blake is anything but sweet. Sexy, funny, crude? Yes. Sweet? You must be mistaken.
Still, I like seeing him like this and being this close I can observe all the details without those eyes of his watching my every move. He’s got two small moles on the left side of his cheek, near his dimples, a smattering of faint freckles across his nose that I don’t think were there last month. They must come out with the sun. I lean in closer. There’s a faint scar above his upper lip that I bet he got in a fight or from some embarrassing childhood accident.
“Get a good look?” he mumbles.
I gasp in surprise and jerk my head back. He opens one eye and looks at me.
“Were you just pretending to be asleep?” I say softly, my heart thudding in my throat.
Half of his grin is buried by the pillow. “I wanted to see if you’d pull the cliché staring at your sex partner maneuver.”
“Sex partner?”
He closes his eyes and tries to shrug. “It’s early.”
“Well, now that you’re awake, I have to go pee,” I tell him, prying his heavy arm off of me. I crawl over him ungracefully and scamper to the bathroom, aware that I’m buck naked as I go. I can hear the bed squeaking lightly and he is so obviously turning around to watch me go. Thankfully I remember which door is the bathroom and I don’t disturb Satan’s hamster.
Once inside, I breathe a sigh of relief, taking in the cool masculinity of his bathroom, the privacy. I sit on the toilet and put my head in my hands and try to think.