Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 114068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
“We’re at fourteen thousand feet, Blue. Rules are different up here. You don’t stay hydrated, you’re gonna wake up with one hell of a hangover tomorrow.”
My heart twists. Why does he care so much about, well, everything?
Why does he care about me?
Turning away from him, I head back into the living room. “Let’s watch The Righteous Gemstones.”
“Love that show. How good is Walton Goggins?”
“Uncle Baby Billy makes the show, right?”
“No question.”
I stand in front of the TV, remote in hand, and scroll through shows until I hit the one I’m looking for. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Duke flopping onto the sofa opposite the one I’ve been hanging out on, settling onto his back.
I’m gripped by the very pressing desire to join him over there. We could cuddle. Duke’s totally a cuddler, right? I imagine his kind of cuddling would be so arousing that it’d quickly lead to more.
Much, much more.
God, I want that.
But I can’t. We can’t. I did not come to Aspen to cuddle with Duke.
It takes every ounce of my self-control to move away from Duke instead of toward him, but I do it. I curl up in the safety of my own sofa and try to focus on the show, not on the handsome cowboy stretched out across from me. He’s got one arm bent behind his head, his straight legs crossed at the ankles. Totally at ease. Is he not about to combust?
I jump at the sudden, howling scream that fills the house. The wind is absolutely ripping outside, the windows rattling again.
Worst of all, the lights flicker.
“Ohmygod.” I put a hand on my chest, heart pounding. “Ohmygod, Duke, this is bad. My nerves are shot. The drive and the trunk show getting pushed back and all these fucking sounds and…” Your glasses.
Duke frowns. He opens his mouth. Closes it, like he thought better of what he was about to say.
Instead, he gets up and walks around the massive coffee table to pick up the remotes off my sofa. “Mind if I put something on?”
“Is it the weather? I feel like we should probably get an update—”
“Pretty sure Mother Nature’s giving us all the updates we need.” He glances over his shoulder at the windows. “I wanna put something on for you. Trust me?”
I scoff. “Like I have a choice.”
“You don’t.” He grins. “Time to ease your mind, Blue, with a little throwback to the nineties.”
CHAPTER 9
Push It
Wheeler
Despite the very real terror that has taken root in my center, I still let out a bark of laughter when a familiar beat plays over the TV speaker.
“Is this—”
“Milli Vanilli?” Duke turns his head to meet my eyes. “Yep. I dare you not to dance to ‘Girl You Know It’s True.’”
I look at him. He looks back, singing along to the song and bopping his head. The music video plays on the TV. It’s so bad it’s almost good—the kind of entertainment that’s compellingly cringe-worthy.
“What in the world made you think of this?” I ask, touched by his very obvious attempt to distract me.
Honestly, what is wrong with me that I can’t give this cowboy a chance? He is excellent in every sense of the word.
And then I remember Preston saying my high school boyfriend broke up with me because I was ugly and stupid and “kind of a bitch.” I cried for days after that. Mom made him say he was sorry, but his apology was halfhearted at best.
“When we were kids, we’d get freaked out when the weather was bad,” he explains. “Remember how the TV would beep really loud during tornado warnings?”
“That was terrifying.”
“My mom would take my brothers and me to the basement, where she’d turn on music and have dance parties with us.”
My chest hurts. “She wanted to distract y’all.”
“It worked. Just like it’s gonna work now.” He flexes his fingers. “Up. C’mon.”
I really, really should just call it a night and go to bed. My buzz is wearing off, and I’m exhausted.
This flirtation is going nowhere. I won’t let it.
But I’m just tipsy enough—just terrified enough—to shove all that aside.
“Great.” I take his hands and let him pull me to my feet. “So I just need to dance, and I’ll stop thinking about the wind blowing down all those trees and them crashing through the house and us getting pinned underneath them and dying a slow horrible death from internal bleeding and/or asphyxiation before the rescue teams are able to make it up here?”
His lips twitch. “Yup. That’s all you need to do.”
I don’t know how it happens. One minute, the wind howls, the windows to our left literally rattling in their casings. The next, my arms are wrapped around his neck, and he’s got his hands on my hips, which are melted into his.
I’m terrified.
I’m turned on.