Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 138881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
This vibration in my chest. This fluttering in my heart. This storm swirling around me. I lick my lips. “Then you’re going to have to teach me how to play a serious game of pickleball. One where we can win. Because that’s what I want for the fake date with Ronnie and his girlfriends.”
“With so much fucking pleasure,” Corbin says with a flirty, dirty grin.
Heat shimmers between us. Vulnerability does too. It’s crackling, pulsing in the air, though neither of us moves.
His eyes are fiery. His fists are clenched. His jaw is tight. He’s a man restrained but breaking apart.
I’ve never been that good at resisting him. I’ve gotten quite adept at winding him up though. That’s why I say the next thing. “Why do you feel protective of me, Corbin?”
He glances at the locked front door. He looks toward the back door that leads to the kitchen, away from the window, away from anyone walking by.
Then, in a low, ragged voice, he says, “Because sometimes I forget you’re not mine.”
I shudder everywhere. “I’m not,” I say, “but sometimes I wish I were.”
“Sometimes I don't know what to do about it. About the way I can’t stop wanting you.”
I grab his apron for the second time in an hour. “Show me. Show me how good you’d fuck me if I were yours.”
27
JUST IN CASE
CORBIN
I scoop her up, toss her over my shoulder, and stalk through the doorway that leads to the back of our bakery.
“Corbin. I can walk.”
“It’s faster if I carry you.”
“Is it really though?” she asks as I cross into the kitchen-slash-dressing room area.
“Woman, don’t test me right now,” I say.
She drums her hands against my back. “Why? Are you going to put me down and strip my apron off me?”
I smack her ass. “The sass from you.”
I can’t see it, but I can feel her smile.
Like I stood a chance at staying away from her. From the dress she wore today, to her hair, to the apron. The goddamn apron that drives me wild for some reason. I guess apron kink is a thing, and I have it. But mostly it’s the way she’s so goddamn bold and bright. She’s like the sun shining as she chases what she wants. And that somehow, incredibly includes me.
I set her down on the concrete floor. The kitchen’s on one side, with its gleaming appliances, mixing bowls, and trays.
The other side, with the makeup tables and exposed lightbulbs, is what this place might have been. For a moment, my thoughts linger on Sticks and Dicks, or whatever the strip club would have been called.
If that place had gotten off the ground, if those past owners hadn’t had trouble with it, Mabel and I might not be working together.
Those last two words echo like a warning—working together.
We are definitely working very closely together, and this—kissing, touching, fucking—is a recipe for failure.
But when she looks at me like that, lips wet, eyes dark, I can’t bring myself to care about consequences. Not when she’s right here in my arms and I need her so damn badly.
I make quick work of the apron strings, undoing them at her neck as I crush her lips with mine.
Her mouth feels so good, soft and pliant. She moves with me, our tongues skating together. Our moans mingling.
“It feels like forever since I kissed you,” I mutter as I briefly break the kiss, frantically tugging down the apron, exposing the collar of the dress that I bought her.
“A day is a long time,” she teases.
“I didn’t kiss you yesterday.”
She seems to think about that for a few seconds. “You should keep making up for that.”
“Oh, I will.”
She glances at the staircase, nodding to it. “Want to go upstairs?”
The bunk. Of course. That makes perfect sense, but I shake my head. “Too far. Can’t wait. Been wanting you for too long.”
She laughs, a flirty kind. “All day? Or since the romance fair?”
I back her up to the makeup table. “Try since I met you, Mabel. Since I met you.”
She blinks. “Really?”
“Yes,” I say, relieved to get that off my chest.
She scoots up on the table, looping her arms around my neck, and now it’s her turn to undo my apron strings. “That’s a long time.”
“You’re telling me.”
Her smile ignites. “You really have?”
I nod, breathe out hard. “When I didn’t see you all the time, I just lived with it. It was there in the background. Now I see you, and it’s like a life force.” I shouldn’t admit this. I know I shouldn’t. But here she is, tossing my apron to the floor, tugging at my shirt, jerking it over my head, and then running her fingers down my abs to the scar where my appendix was.
“I love all your scars,” she says in a reverent voice. My head swims with lust. And I’m tossing her apron to the floor with mine.