Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
“What do you mean?”
I look at her steadily, the same supportive way I always will. She holds my gaze for a few moments and then nods.
She knows what I mean. She doesn’t have to ask.
And she doesn’t need me to explain but I’m going to say it anyway.
“The more you eat,” I say, my voice husky, “the curvier your body gets. Do you think I’m ever going to judge you for that?”
“What if I wanted to lose weight?” she asks.
My first instinct is to savagely tell her no.
It comes from deep inside of me, buried in a carnal place, the piece of me that erupted when I first laid my eyes on her on the editing website, my beautifully curvy butterfly.
“Do you?” I ask.
She shakes her head, and then she laughs in the cutest way. It’s a difficult thing to judge, the cuteness of her laughter, how much it intoxicates me… because everything about her does, each thing captivating me even more than the last.
“No,” she says, still laughing. “Which is a good thing. I think you’d kill me if I did want to lose weight.”
I chuckle. “My feelings were that obvious?”
“I thought you were going to flip the table.”
She pauses as the waiter brings our drinks, then clutches her glass. “Most men wouldn’t want a woman built like me, you know. I’m not trying to be all pity party about it, but that’s just a fact. Most men….”
“I don’t give a damn what most men want. I didn’t care what most men did when it came to boxing, throwing fights, or placating those assholes. And I don’t care now, with you. If most men wouldn’t find you attractive, butterfly, good… it means there’s no doubt about who you belong to.”
She smiles, reaching across the table. We clasp hands tightly, warmth surging between us, her touch awakening the hunger in me. The need.
But that’s not saying much.
Everything she does wakes up the beast in me.
“This is delicious,” Mia says after swallowing a mouthful of her steak.
I smile across at her.
She tilts her head and leans back. Her eyes are wide and ensnaring, capable of capturing me forever.
No, not capable.
They did that the first second I saw them on my computer screen.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask.
“It’s your smile. It’s different.”
My grin widens as I cut into my steak. “Different… how?”
“I don’t know. Almost like the darkness is lifting… Does that sound cheesy as hell?”
“No way. Like you said before, the cheesier, the better.”
She laughs at the callback, the same thing she said to me earlier.
“You can see all that in my smile?” I go on.
“Before you told me the truth, it was like there was all this pain in your smile, even when you were happy. But there’s something new there now. Or maybe that’s just the wannabe poet in me.”
“No, you’re right,” I tell her passionately. “You have to understand before I told you the truth about everything, I was holding back so, so much. I was holding back all the insanity of the life I wanted, still want, and need with you.”
Her cheeks blush in that beautiful way as if a force of pure affection is lighting her up inside. There’s no greater pleasure than making my woman beam like this.
“You look pregnant already,” I say.
She frowns, leaning back.
“Not like that,” I rush to say, almost tripping over my words. “I mean… you’re glowing. You look so happy. So… where you belong.”
“Am I making you nervous, Killian?” she says, a teasing note in her voice.
I chuckle. “I just don’t want to offend you.”
“You could never do that. And anyway, if you did….”
She looks down. My hand moves across the table instinctively, touching the bottom of her chin and guiding her gaze to mine. The warmth of her skin moves down my fingers, arm, and chest, where it causes a fierce hammering in my heart.
“If I did?” I prompt, never wanting nerves to hold her back.
“We’ve got the rest of our lives for you to make it up to me,” she says, voice choked as if she has to push the words out.
“I’ll never stop treating you right,” I tell her, “even if I haven’t offended you. So now that you don’t have to work, will you focus on your editing or poetry?”
“Both,” she says, shaking her head slowly as if she doesn’t believe it. “You don’t have to do that for me.”
“You’re my woman. There’s no reason for you to bust your ass working a job you hate.”
“Thank you,” she whispers. “Yeah. Both. I love editing, love how it’s a combination of being creative but also taking a backseat, helping somebody else to realize their dream.”
“And then you’ve got the poetry for when you really want to get creative.”
“Exactly,” she says, beaming. “That’s it. Um… excuse me, I’m going to use the ladies’ room.”