Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78108 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78108 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Talk about cutting to the chase. I could give a simple that’s true. But she deserves more. “It’s not that I’m not looking. It’s that I’m not any good at romance,” I say, a little embarrassed. I’m the intimacy expert who’s no good at love. But is it any surprise, given how I grew up? My father detached from the world when my mom died.
“Did Elizabeth tell you that?”
“The evidence tells me that. My track record tells me that. And you,” I say, running a hand through her hair. “You deserve the best.”
She smiles brightly. “That’s true. I do.”
I fucking love that she knows that. And there’s no need to keep that to myself. I run my knuckles down her cheek. “Good. I’m glad you know you’re a masterpiece.”
“Feel free to tell me anytime.”
I press another soft, tender kiss to her lips, whispering, “Masterpiece.”
When I break the kiss, she slides her hand down my chest, and it feels so good I close my eyes. I have to. I can barely handle how her touch lights up some part of my soul. Especially when she snuggles closer to my neck, sniffing me.
I laugh. “Are you smelling me?”
“Yes. I sniffed you last night too. And you smelled like rosemary and shea butter. Like you got that day.”
I freeze. She remembers. I swallow, a little uncomfortably, but it’s a good discomfort, like after a workout. “You like that?”
“I always have.”
That’s not helping my fight. I don’t open my eyes, not sure I can handle looking at her right now. I’d probably melt. “I always use it,” I mutter.
She’s quiet again, then she asks, “Ever since…?”
Here we are again. Revisiting the past, like she dared to do last night. I open my eyes and look into hers, giving her the truth. “Always.”
She gasps, then says, “I like it.”
My heart thunders, annoyingly. I want to spend the day here like this, wrapped up in her. But there’s work to do, and walls to paint, and a tee time with my father late in the afternoon. “Good,” I say. That’s all I can manage, or else I will say too much.
I sit up, extricating myself from her. “Forget about the tea. Let me go get you a coffee.”
“Okay,” she says, but there’s a crease in her brow. She’s concerned.
“What’s wrong?”
She inhales deep, like she needs to fortify herself. “Are we still doing the experiment?”
My throat burns hotter than it did when I ate that chili pepper to spite my father. Jealousy thrashes through me, stomping in my chest like an ogre. But I swallow it down and say yes.
I can’t stand in the way of her goals. I can get her coffee, though, so I do that.
19
TINY POUNDY PART
Juliet
Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, and damn straight, I grab a fuchsia feather boa and a pair of pink heart-shaped glasses from Eleanor’s closet of wonders.
I put them on before I leave for the hardware store. With the feathers tickling my neck, I hop into Monroe’s car, leaving him behind to start all the painting stuff. There’s just that roller pan issue. After I turn the car on, I plug in my phone and blast the speakers off, rocking out to my girl Taylor as I cruise along, singing at the top of my lungs and then some.
My toxic trait is that I think I sound amazing, and I just can’t stop.
Or maybe I’m crooning because I got some this morning. By the time I arrive at the shop on the outskirts of Darling Springs, I’m fueled by caffeine, morning sex, and music. The sex didn’t end on the chaise. I’m a giver, so I gave him an O, too, when he returned with my coffee. Translation: I let him bang me on the poker table, and the flush I felt was definitely of the royal variety.
When I reach Josiah’s, I park but don’t get out right away. I take a beat to look around his car. I’m a little curious. Maybe I’ll discover something new about Monroe. The interior is so clean, though, that there are hardly any signs of him in it. There isn’t an air freshener hanging from the mirror. He wouldn’t need it since he keeps the vehicle pristine. There aren’t wrappers from energy bars eaten hastily on the way to meetings he’s running late to. He doesn’t run late. There isn’t a sweatshirt on the back seat in case he gets cold. He doesn’t get cold.
My heart sinks a little. He really is impervious to everything. My throat tightens, and my high vanishes.
I’d been hoping to find some little detail. A candy wrapper, or a packet of ibuprofen. Something to tell me that sometimes, he’s vulnerable. A sign that would tell me he might be open to romance even in spite of the fact that if it went up in smoke, it could torpedo the podcast we’ve both put so much into building. And we’re both planning to put so much more into it when we sell this gift of a house and reinvest it.