Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
My stuffed taco had become finger food.
I gave a jump and a squeal, yanking my dress down under the table as Dean pulled his hand away. For a split second, there was something in his face that definitely wasn’t fake. Hunger. Longing. Desire. Then he was smiling and looking back toward the rest of the table. “She gets so embarrassed about our names for eachother. I know it’s silly, but we can’t help ourselves.”
Nice save, I thought. I could say what I wanted about Dean, but at least one of us was smooth under pressure.
Lizzie, who had been harboring a hint of suspicion since I told her about Dean, looked like she was fully convinced it was real. She was staring at us and shaking her head slowly, smiling. “I’m so freaking happy,” she said. “I can’t believe my little sister is falling in love.”
“Falling?” Dean said. He took my hand from under the table, laced his fingers with mine, and lifted it up for everyone to see.
“Nope,” I said before he could finish, because for some misguided reason, I thought I’d make less of a mess of this than he would. “We aren’t falling. We’ve already hit rock bottom. Well, I mean like good rock bottom. Like what happens after the fall is over. Love,” I said, because anxiety brain was slipping its stupid, shaky fingers over the steering wheel. “We’re super in love. I love him!” I squealed a little too loud, and then, because I felt the momentum of disaster starting to mount, I leaned over and planted a kiss right on his cheek.
His stubble tickled my lips and his skin smelled faintly of expensive cologne. Knowing my kiss was only an inch or two from his lips was doing things to me–things I didn’t care to admit, most of which were centered between my legs.
Dean put an arm around my shoulders, hugging me into his side and kissing me on the top of my head with a loud smack. He turned and smiled at me, winked, then turned his attention back to the others.
I was horrified, weirdly turned on, and almost positive that was what you could call a “victorious wink.”
11
DEAN
Pearl cornered me in the hallway outside the banquet hall. She’d made an excuse about her stomach not feeling right as soon as she could and excused both of us. She was whisper-yelling and giving me regular shoves to punctuate her sentences now that we were mostly alone, save for the occasional scurrying member of the wait staff.
“What was that?” She hissed. Three shoves.
“That was playing the part,” I said.
“Sugar Bottom?” Two shoves.
“Daddyplums?” I couldn’t help laughing. I also couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I knew what underwear she had on. Except I realized I hadn’t picked out a bra for her, and now that I looked closer, I could see she’d taken that as a suggestion. Her breasts were definitely free and living life to the fullest under that dress. I could even see the hard points of her nipples rising up. Either she was cold, or she was enjoying herself more than she let on.
Naturally, I chose to believe the latter.
“Eyes up here!” she snapped. She gave up the shoving and walked a slow, frustrated circle with her fists balled at her side. “And if you put your hand up my dress like that again, I’ll kill you.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I had my hand innocently on your knee. Until you did some kind of spontaneous pelvic thrust and rubbed yourself on me. Frankly, I felt violated.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
I took a deep breath. I was having fun. There was no denying that, but I had to admit she was right. We both had a lot on the line here. “Okay. I’ll apologize for touching your knee if you apologize for pelvic thrusting yourself into me and then kissing me on the cheek. Fair?”
Pearl looked like her idea of “fair” at that particular moment would be kicking me hard enough between the legs to end the Slater line right then and there. To her credit, she tilted her chin up with a touch of defiance and muttered something that sounded like “sorry”.
“Your Daddyplums forgives you.”
“Don’t call yourself that.”
“But it’s the first pet name you gave me. That’s important. These are the kinds of memories a good couple like us should cherish for years.”
“Dean, I really will kill you. I know where you sleep.”
I smirked, and her anger finally broke enough that she smiled back–just for a moment.
“So is your stomach really hurting?”
“No,” she said.
“Then you made me miss the steak for nothing? I assume you have other plans to feed your man?”
“If we stayed at that table any longer, there was no telling what kind of crazy stories you might tell about us. You should be thanking me.”