Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“I said only under certain circumstances and only when I want it.” I winked. “Come on, baby. I’ll show you to my room. Not for sex, though.” Marcus sighed but went with me. “Anders has a truck. I figure we can get everything in two loads. He said he has the whole day to help.”
“I rented a moving vehicle, so we can get it in one.”
“What the fuck, Marcus! You have to stop doing that shit. How do you know I didn’t already do that, and then we’d have two?”
“Declan told me. Stop doing what?” He crossed his arms.
My gaze darted toward Anders. “Nothing. We’ll talk about it later.”
The truck was a good idea, which I’d of course thought about on my own, but I was trying to save the money. Anders didn’t mind helping for free.
The move did go quicker with Marcus there helping and having the larger vehicle to move everything in, and before I knew it, I was driving my car, Marcus the truck, and Anders was waving goodbye since Marcus had told him we could unload by ourselves.
I’d never been to Marcus’s house before. I knew it would be nice, but nothing had prepared me for the gorgeous monstrosity of a beachside villa. The place had to be more than five thousand square feet, a white house with an orange-tiled roof, secluded even though there were neighbors close, and with trees and plants surrounding it.
My little Toyota would definitely stand out. The second I got out of the car, I said, “Holy shit. This is where you live?”
This was where I lived?
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Says you. Holy fuck, Marcus. I can’t live here with you.”
He frowned. “Why?”
Um…I didn’t really know. “It feels like taking advantage of you. It’s weird. I knew you had bank, but I didn’t think you had this.” I waved my hand at the fucking mansion. I suddenly felt really naive and stupid for trying to sleep with him. He was even more out of my league than I’d thought.
“It’s just a house, Kai. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Says people who live in houses like this.” I paced the driveway. Oh God. I would look like I wanted Marcus for his money. I didn’t. Again, I knew he had it, but being wealthy and having a house like this were two totally different things. What was I going to do? I’d thought I had an answer to my problems. I could try Ricky again, but I’d messaged him on Grindr to find out what happened the other night, and he hadn’t responded. “Your neighbors are gonna call the cops on me if they see me around here.”
“Then they’d have me to deal with. They know me and won’t play that shit,” Marcus replied, but I ignored him, wearing holes in my shoes from pacing. “Kai.”
If I went back to Riverside, I could eventually save money and come back here, and even if it wasn’t Santa Monica, I could move to LA. I could…
“Kai.” This time his voice was lower, more serious.
“What?” I stopped.
“This is four walls. It’s not what’s important in life. The structure doesn’t matter, just the things that happen inside, and what happens in there is the same as what happens at that apartment we just left or where your folks live. It’s where my family comes together.”
He turned before I could respond and headed for the house. I was speechless for a moment. I’d never heard Marcus speak like that before, with such emotion and sincerity. And I knew without asking that when he said his family, he meant Declan, Corbin, and Parker.
Marcus was sexy as fuck, but there was more to him than that, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to learn more about a man I was interested in. I wanted to figure him out, put his pieces together until I saw the whole of him.
“You gonna help me move shit in or what, baby?” I asked, using my best flirtatious voice.
“Yep. Just unlocking the door.”
“What if I’d said no about staying?” I called out to him.
“Then I would have kidnapped you. I’m good at getting what I want.”
I smiled at the laughter in his voice. I had no doubt he was right.
* * *
“Fuck. I have a bathroom in my bedroom?” I said when we’d finished carrying everything inside.
“I think you might be the only person in the world to complain about that.”
“Because I was hoping you’d accidentally walk in on me showering one day…or I’d come out in a towel and we’d run into each other in the hallway. My towel would fall, totally by accident, of course, and once you got an eye of me naked, no way you’d be able to resist.” I pumped my brows playfully. Marcus shook his head, but I intrigued him. I could see that.