Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 89519 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89519 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
“Stop breathing weird.” I grumble, irritated at his good humor.
“I am literally breathing like a normal person.”
“Yeah, well—it’s loud.” A distracting reminder that he’s present and inches away, and good looking.
There’s a beat of silence. Then there’s a pull from the sheets; a rustle coupled with the shift of weight on the mattress.
He turns toward me.
I stay on my back—waiting—staring toward the ceiling and pretending my heart isn’t thudding like a teenage girl’s in a sleepover game of seven minutes in heaven.
“Question,” he whispers. “What happens if I roll over in my sleep and accidentally brush your knee or something?”
Pfft. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” He sounds skeptical. “Not even a warning elbow to the ribs?”
“Depends how much quote, unquote, ‘brushing’ is happening.” I’m smiling in the dark now, too, despite my best efforts to remain unaffected by his sexiness.
God, I am so, so weak.
I’ve known this man for two days, and hookups are not my style.
They’re Not! Stop Judging Me!
I sniff the air and inwardly groan; he smells amazing. His body is warm—a blazing inferno. He’s not even touching me, and I’m fighting the urge to roll closer like some affection-starved idiot.
Also? The bed is not as big as it looked when it was empty. In fact, it’s shrinking by the second.
Another flash of lightning flickers through the room. For one brief second, I can see his eyes watching me, hand tucked beneath his chin, biceps bulging.
The flash fades, plunging us back into darkness.
I huff. “This is dumb.”
I hear his brows rise. “What is?”
“This! Us. Lying here. Not sleeping.” Not touching. Not doing anything but whispering like two teenagers at summer camp. A rumble of thunder punctuates my sentence.
“I’m tired,” he says quietly. “But I’m also wired—if that makes sense.”
Same. I am way too aware of him beside me, and then he makes it worse.
More thunder. It’s loud, causing the bedside tables to rattle.
“Would it be bad if I ask you to scoot closer?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper, already an inch nearer.
My stomach does a pirouette. “You scared?” I ask.
He grunts, shifting again, the mattress dipping as his arm moves under his head and his massive body finds a new position. I scoot an inch toward the middle of the mattress, meeting him in the middle.
Fine, it’s more like two inches. Enough that the heat from his body begins to scorch my skin.
“This okay?” he whispers.
I nod, forgetting for a second that he can’t see me. “Yeah.” Sure.
Our knees touch. Our feet. Then traitorously our calves connect like magnets finally giving in.
My heart? A total backstabbing bitch! She’s pounding out “Kiss him kiss him kiss him” like a commandment carved into a tree trunk.
No.
No, We Are Not Kissing! We are not touching lips or tongues or anything else. There will be no swapping of bodily fluids on this bed, this mattress, this extremely warm battlefield of bad decisions.
But . . .
It would kill time.
It would definitely take his mind off the storm.
And I haven’t had a man touch my boobs in literal weeks. Tim doesn’t count—he always seemed slightly annoyed I had them in the first place. Our relationship was mostly emotional. If you can call talking about city council budgets and CrossFit macros emotional.
I glance at where his face is. I can’t see him in the dark, but I know he’s watching me.
Waiting.
God, he smells so good . . .
“Callum,” I whisper, testing out his real name again.
“Mmm?” His chest rumbles.
Um. “Just checking to see if you’re awake.”
A soft chuckle. “It’s been one minute.”
Oh. Right.
“I’m not kissing you,” I blurt, and then immediately slap a hand over my mouth like that’ll stuff the words back in. Jesus. Could I be more awkward?
There’s a beat. The kind of pause that says he’s fighting a grin.
“Okay,” he says smoothly.
My pulse kicks. “Unless the storm gets worse.”
He chuckles under his breath. “Copy that.”
Why is he being so agreeable? Jeez. I turn my face into the pillow, mortified. Heat rolls off my cheeks. Burning. But before I can spiral deeper into internal panic, the sky outside cracks wide open.
Boom.
Mother Nature slams into the cabin like it’s trying to knock down the front door, remind us that we are vulnerable humans at her will. At her mercy . . .
Lightning follows instantly, lighting the room for a full second like someone switched on a spotlight. I flinch. So does he.
Then—
“Well,” Maverick says, voice husky and way too calm for what’s about to happen. “That felt definitive.”
My eyes pop open. “What did?”
“The storm,” he says, already shifting closer. “It’s getting worse.”
“I mean, yes, technically, but—”
He doesn’t wait for me to finish.
One hand curls around my waist, slow and warm, pulling me gently toward him, and then his mouth is on mine—firm—as if he’s been waiting to devour me since the moment he saw me lying in that hammock.