Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 112(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 112(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
None of that compared to this.
He stood in the middle of the kitchen in a navy apron he didn't know they owned, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, his forearms still dusted with flour from an incident he preferred not to revisit. Behind him, the counter looked like the aftermath of a very small, very localized natural disaster. There was smoke residue on the ceiling. The oven was open because something inside it had made a sound he didn't trust, and the fire extinguisher Laina had brought with her from the apartment was standing in the corner like a silent, judgmental witness.
His heart slammed against his chest as the front door opened, and his wife walked inside their home.
She stopped dead in her tracks.
Her bag slid off her shoulder. Her lips parted. And for a long moment, she just stood there in the doorway, her gaze moving from the apron to the counter to the dining table to the smoke stain on the ceiling and back to him.
"W-What's all this?"
Troy forced himself to meet her eyes. He was six foot three. He had spent twelve seasons being hit by men whose sole purpose was to put him through a wall. He had once played an entire period with a cracked rib and hadn't flinched.
But standing in front of his wife in a flour-dusted apron with a platter of incinerated chicken behind him was, without question, the most terrifying thing he had ever done.
"As it turns out," he said, "I'm just as good as you at burning things."
She choked back a laugh. Her hand flew to her mouth, but the sound had already escaped, bright and startled and real, and something in Troy's chest cracked open at the sound of it. How long had it been since he'd heard his wife laugh? How long since he'd been the one to make her?
"And tonight," he continued, keeping his voice even, "you'll need to prove that you're just as good as I am at eating burnt things."
Laina slowly walked forward and took a look at the disaster on the table.
There were two plates. Candles that had already melted halfway down because he had lit them too early and hadn't known candles could melt that fast. A bowl of salad that actually looked edible, beside a platter of chicken that was charred on the outside and, she suspected, completely raw on the inside. Two glasses of wine, poured unevenly. A basket of rolls that were either severely overbaked or had been purchased that way on purpose, and knowing Troy, it could genuinely be either.
"The, um, wow..." Her gaze drifted to the stove, where a small pot sat with its lid askew and something deeply unfortunate inside. "Are those...boiled eggs?"
She didn't know it was possible to mess up boiled eggs, but somehow, her husband had actually done it. The shells had cracked and the whites had leaked out in strange, bulging formations, and they looked like tiny explosions frozen in time.
Troy Barrymore, who had once been named the most disciplined athlete in professional sports, had been defeated by boiling water and a carton of eggs.
"Laina..."
Oh, how he was saying her name.
The way he always said it. Low and quiet and careful, like he was holding something precious between his hands, something he knew he didn't deserve to hold but couldn't bring himself to put down.
She looked at him. Really looked at him, for the first time since she'd walked through the door.
He was still the most beautiful man she had ever seen. She hated that. She hated that it still caught her off guard, after seven years, the sheer physical fact of him. The sharp line of his jaw. The way his shoulders filled the doorway. His dark eyes, intent and focused, watching her with the same concentration he'd once given to a puck moving at ninety miles an hour.
But there was something different in those eyes tonight. Something she hadn't seen before. Something that looked almost like...fear.
Troy Barrymore was afraid.
Of her.
Of this.
Of the answer she was about to give him.
She didn't know where or how to start. All those things she had promised herself during lunch, all those firm, clear words she had rehearsed fourteen times in her head on the drive home...
They were gone. Every single one.
But when she turned to face him, she didn't get a chance to say another word.
He had already hauled her close, his mouth covering hers, and then somehow...
It was happening all over again.
But this time was different from all the others.
His kiss was slow. Not desperate. Not hungry. Not the urgent, almost-angry collision of two people who couldn't stop wanting each other. This was something else entirely. His hands cradled her face, his thumbs resting against her cheekbones, and he kissed her like they had all the time in the world. Like he was learning the shape of her mouth for the first time.