Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69424 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69424 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
He poked the glass with his finger and said, “What the fuck?”
I grabbed another chip and dipped that one in hot sauce.
He reached for the door handle and I squealed, taking the bag of food and myself right out the back door.
Only, my damn yard was fenced, and I had nowhere to go.
I stopped at the back of the yard and turned worriedly, hoping beyond hope that Jasper hadn’t followed.
No such luck, though.
I found him at the back door with his arms crossed. “Give it back.”
“Never.” I reached for another chip, accidentally dipping my fingers in along with the chip.
When I brought the delicacy up to my lips his eyes turned to slits. “That’s my food.”
“It was delivered to my address,” I pointed out. “So technically, possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
He drew a deep breath and blew it out. “Calliope Hodges, I swear to fucking god…”
“It’s the Christmas season,” I countered, repeating his words from earlier. “The season of giving.”
I licked the cheese free of my fingers and he hissed in a breath, his eyes narrowing.
He shifted from foot to foot, and I allowed my gaze to take him in.
Jasper was a badass, in my honest opinion.
He was tall, broody, scarred and scary.
He was everything I wouldn’t admit to myself that I wanted.
He wasn’t necessarily handsome. The scars saw to that.
But what he lacked in the beauty department, he made up with sheer sexual magnitude.
He may not try to, but the man could fill out a pair of jeans. The t-shirt he was wearing fit him like a glove, even if it did mostly cover him from neck to wrists.
The only scarring I could see was on his left side—his hand and his face—and even that somehow appealed to me.
I wondered what his hands would feel like—both scarred and smooth—running over my body.
I wondered what my tongue would feel like running over all of those ridges.
“What are you staring at?” he grumbled as he started down the back porch steps and toward me.
I froze like a deer in headlights and wondered if I should try to make a run for it again.
Maybe I could lock him in the backyard…
Except, when my body tensed to make a move, he was on me before I could blink.
He moved at the speed of light, surrounding me and corralling me until my back hit the fence with a soft thud.
“My…” He plucked the bag from my hands. “Food.” Then he bent down and brought my fingers to his mouth, licking what was left of the cheese from my fingers.
My breath hitched, and just when I was about to say or do something stupid—like ask him if he wanted to take my virginity—he backed away and left.
He went out the side gate that I could never seem to get open, and slammed it behind him.
My heart was pounding in my chest as I fought a losing battle with my heart.
There was no coming back from what just happened.
I just knew it.
Twelve
Stop thinking about everything so much. You’re breaking your own heart.
—Searcy to Calliope
CALLIOPE
“What the hell is your problem?” my sister asked as she patted her infant son on the bottom as she swayed back and forth.
She looked wrecked.
Would it be rude to point out that she needed a shower?
I could smell the throw up on her from here.
“My problem is,” I said, taking the crying baby from her arms and settling him on my shoulder. “You’re exhausted. You need a fucking shower. And you need to eat something so that you’re not so crabby. Now, start with the shower, because you really stink.”
Searcy looked at me for a long second before she said, “That was rude.”
“Rude and truthful,” I said. “Now go, for the love of God. Even the dog won’t get close to you right now.”
Searcy looked down, then sideways as if she fully expected her dog to be there. But he was nowhere in sight. I doubted it was due to her smell, and more likely the screaming infant that was in my arms, but still.
“Shit,” she said. “I’ll go.”
Her other two were down for naps—I’d made sure to put them there—and there was one left to go.
Searcy left, and I grabbed a towel off the dryer to lay down beside the sink in the kitchen.
Once I had the water to temperature, I plugged it with the stopper and laid a kitchen towel into it before starting on Dalton’s clothes.
He was covered in puke, and I couldn’t stop the wrinkle in my nose as I tossed the clothes to the floor.
The next to go was his stupid cloth diaper—yet another thing that Searcy was kicking ass at—and tossed that to the floor, too.
I didn’t fuck with cloth diapers.
I’d do the disposable ones, but diapers weren’t really my jam. And spraying shit off of them into the toilet wasn’t really something I wanted to do.