Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 133975 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133975 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
Keys just wasn’t a nice guy. He never had been. It was weird being with him and not hearing him make his rude comments. He always tried to get under her skin. He talked about sex, dirty sex, nearly all the time, yet he hadn’t mentioned anything close to that in his normal conversations. He’d always made her laugh with his arrogant alpha bullshit. She had no idea what to do with this stranger.
The only time she was comfortable with him was in the middle of the night. Since that only came around once every twenty-four hours, she had a lot of time to be very uncomfortable. More and more she found herself looking longingly toward the state forest out the back windows. She just needed to get rid of Keys, throw her gear into her backpack and hit the trail. She could disappear and their helicopters and trackers wouldn’t be able to find her. She’d be free.
Keys looked down at her from his superior height. That annoyed her too. Why hadn’t she noticed he was a good foot taller than her? Not in a cute, he’s gorgeous and adorable way like she’d viewed him before he turned all weird on her. Keys nice was him at his most deceptive. She didn’t want to find out what he was up to. Because he was up to something, and he knew she wasn’t going to like it.
“I see you have your sass back,” he observed.
“I express concern for you and you accuse me of sass?”
“That was your way of expressing concern? Telling me I don’t need to look after you and I’m restless? Is that code for something you women like to throw out and we’re supposed to guess what you mean? You may have forgotten, what with your head injury, but I don’t play those fuckin’ games.”
He hadn’t sworn once in the last week. Not once. She wanted to smirk because as far as she was concerned, she’d just won the lottery. The Keys she knew was hidden behind the zombie robot. What was his game?
“So sorry you think a friend can’t express concern for your…um…problem.”
“I have a problem now.”
“You always have a problem, Keys. It hits you about eight times a day.” She narrowed her eyes and deliberately looked at his crotch.
His eyebrow shot up. “Only eight? You’re definitely lowballing here. Nice of you to notice my problem. Are you offering to help?”
She struggled not to blush. She should have seen that coming. “I’m giving you the green light to go into town and give your famous pickup line to some woman, or maybe you need women, since it’s been so long. I’ll be just fine.” Packing her bag and disappearing. That’s what she’d be doing while he was doing what he always did.
“Pickup line? What the hell is my pickup line?”
Now he sounded exactly like her Keys. Indignant. Annoyed with her. Abrupt and bordering on rude. She just had to shake him up a little, and the mask slipped right off. He’d been under there, trying to pretend with her, but it was never going to work.
“I’ve seen you use it a hundred times. You do the arrogant-ass caveman grunt and jerk your chin toward the door. Works every time. I’m not sure why.”
“Let’s find out. I’m willing to show you.”
Her heart unexpectedly squeezed down hard, so hard the pain ran down her back and up through her chest. This was why she’d known she couldn’t live with him. He’d shown her sweet, for whatever reasons he had while she was recuperating. Now he was back to the real man.
She loved that man. She didn’t want to be in love with him. She’d already grown used to sleeping in the same bed with him. That was insane. But it had happened. Now she wasn’t certain if she ever could fall asleep without him wrapped around her. She’d even gotten used to him pressing kisses into her hair and kissing her eyes and the tip of her nose and the corners of her mouth. It had become a nightly ritual. She had known she should shut it down, that he was wrapping himself inside her far too tightly.
She wasn’t normal. She didn’t love normally. Her emotions were always too much. She focused wholly on Keys and didn’t see anyone else. She never would. She knew his every expression. She knew when he was bored out of his mind or needed to pick up one of his instruments and go into a corner and just play, zoning out.
Keys had no idea how completely she was into him. None of it was his fault. Keys was just being Keys. He wasn’t responsible for her obsessive-compulsive behavior. Or that she focused so utterly and completely on the things she loved. Like her hairdressing. She was better than good at all things relating to her business because she was so utterly focused. She was that way about Keys. She knew absolutely she would never feel the same way about another man. And what she felt wasn’t good. It was too much. No man wanted the kind of attention she would give, especially a man like Keys, who despised clingy women.