Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 108483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
His chuckle rumbles through my bones like a car, revved, idling. “Don’t mind him,” Maxim says. “He has a one-track mind.”
I turn over in the decadence of million-thread-count silk sheets, in the biggest bed I’ve ever slept in. Maxim doesn’t do anything on a small scale, and the plane last night and this hotel are no exception.
“Which track is that?” I smile into eyes that mirror my own satisfaction.
“The you track.” His smile dims a little, but the contentment doesn’t. “Pretty much just you, Nix.”
“The me track has to get out of this bed if I plan to make my meeting. I’m in Ohio to work for your brother, buddy. Sorry we don’t get more time together.”
“I have an idea.” He dips his head and nibbles my ear, sending a ripple of lust I don’t have time for through my body. “You could skip the service trip to Costa Rica and come with me to Paris for this climate change summit instead.”
“You do realize you just suggested I renege on my commitment to building schools in an impoverished village to run off to Paris with you?”
“And that’s bad?” he asks with a straight face and sly humor in his eyes.
I slap his shoulder. “You know I can’t. I committed to this trip before I took on Owen’s campaign, so it’s not the best timing, but I have to honor my word. If for no other reason than I can’t let the San Carlos students I’m taking with me down.”
“And Wallace?” Maxim runs a finger along my collarbone, not looking up when he asks the question.
“What about him?”
“Ten whole days in a hot jungle with your ex-boyfriend sounds sexy.” A humorless smile pulls his mouth into a stiff curve. “Maybe old feelings stir. Things happen.”
“Hey.” I pass my thumb over that unnatural smile he’s wearing. “Foster step-cousin, remember?”
His smile is genuine for the first time since we started discussing the trip.
“It’s not like that with Wall and me,” I tell him. “It never really was. We just…tried.”
“Well, there’s no trying with me.” Maxim gently pushes me back into the pillows. “There’s no stopping this.”
His kisses descend from the curve of my neck to the tilt of my breast, melting my core, and my hips start circling, subtly finding an ancient rhythm of want. His fingers wander from my knee to inside my thigh and higher. My breath hitches when he strokes between my legs.
“Doc,” I groan, giving the watch on my wrist a half-hearted glance. “My meeting. I have to get up. I have to go.”
“Not yet,” he whispers and kisses my neck, sucks my nipple, squeezes my ass. “Give me a little more. Two more minutes.”
Two turns to ten. His tender, nibbling kisses devour me. Light touches ignite our bodies to burn. Our hearts pound, and our passion overwhelms us. A little more becomes everything, and before I know it, we’re lost in a tangle of I am his and he is mine, insatiable, inseparable.
Perfect together.
CHAPTER 50
LENNIX
“So do you hate me yet?” Wallace asks.
The look I shoot him is part affection, part exasperation, and no hatred whatsoever.
“Of course not.” I scoop a spoonful of rice and beans into my mouth, a staple here on the Bribri reserve, and chew before continuing. “It’s been a great trip.”
“Not too rough?” He takes a bite of potato wrapped in banana leaf and waits for my reply.
“The hardest part was getting here.”
After we landed in San Jose with our group of twenty—a few doctors and scientists like Wallace, some adult volunteers like me, and ten students from the San Carlos reservation—we took a bumpy five-hour bus ride on rugged terrain into the mountains, swerving to avoid the occasional bull or chicken in the middle of the road. Then a raft carried us deeper into parts of the village only accessible by water.
“Paco said we’re lucky it’s not the rainy season,” one of the students, Anna, says, her wide smile gleaming from the metal of her braces. “We might not have been able to cross the river.”
I smile at the young women from the San Carlos reservation who have conducted themselves with such dignity since we arrived. A few of them speak Spanish, which is what the people here speak primarily. I listen with fascination and some wistfulness when I hear the people of Bribri speaking their native language, too. I know some Apache and am constantly learning more, but I, like many of my generation, am not fluent. The devastating legacy of colonialism in America is so vast, but one of the worst parts is the gradual disappearance of our languages. We were forbidden for many years to even speak our tribal tongues, and many of our languages could be extinct within the next decade. The people of Bribri may not have much materially, but I love seeing that they still have their culture, their ancient ways, and their language, even as they attempt to embrace modern necessities.