Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 97994 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97994 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
“You’re quiet,” she murmurs.
“Am I?”
“Mm.” She takes her finger and lightly presses it into the dimple in my cheek. “You get this look when you’re thinking too hard.”
I force a smile. “I’m always thinking.”
“I know, but that’s not what I meant.”
Of course that’s not what she meant.
She’s expecting me to lighten up at some point. She’s expecting me to let my guard down. Shit, she’s probably expecting me to confide in her.
The mood is ripe for it.
Intimate and quiet, except for the sound coming from the TV mounted to my bedroom wall.
“You’re so handsome when you’re deep in thought,” she whispers softly, gutting me further. “I like how your brows go like this.”
She dramatically pulls her brows into a V.
“You like it when I look irritated?” I ask dryly.
“At least you’re not trying to be fake, feeding me lines to get into my pants.”
This time, my smile is real. “The irony is, if I was blowing smoke up your ass, you wouldn’t fall for it, would you?”
The irony is, I am blowing smoke up her ass to get into her pants.
Juliette doesn’t realize she began as an abstract. She wasn’t a living, breathing person in this story—she was a means to an end. Leverage.
Convenient.
The thought sits ugly in my gut as her big blue doe eyes regard me, her delicate fingers brushing the hair off my forehead.
Get close.
Make her fall.
Get even.
This was about Declan—not her.
Was.
Past tense?
Fuck, fuck, fuck…
I bring my hand to her cheek, thumb brushing over her smooth skin. She really is gorgeous—and I’m probably going to miss her when the bomb detonates—long lashes fluttering when I lean forward to kiss her pretty, pouty lips.
She melts into my mouth like it’s the most natural thing in the world—which is the other fucking problem.
She fits.
She fits against me on this bed. She fits under my arm. She fits into my life in a way that has become wildly inconvenient.
My parents and sister would fucking love her, which would be a first in the history of “Aaron brings a girl home.” They’ve never liked a single one of my girlfriends but, to be fair to my family, most of them were like Bailey.
Superficial and calculating.
I run the tip of my finger over Juliette’s delicate jawline. “You’re the sweetest person I’ve ever met.”
And I mean that.
Her eyes meet mine and for a solid three seconds she looks like she’s waiting for me to deliver a punchline like “just kidding.”
“Thanks?” she says cautiously.
I huff a quiet laugh.
I regard her then, taking in her fresh face. There are freckles across the bridge of her nose I hadn’t noticed the first few times we met. Light but long lashes. The cupid’s bow of her upper lip is perfectly shaped and suckable.
She’s petite and delicate.
Soft in ways that make you instinctively want to shield her from people like me.
“You look nothing like your brother.”
Juliette snorts. “That’s because I’m not six-foot-three with an ego the size of an entire continent.” She pauses. “We don’t resemble each other much because we don’t have the same dad.”
“Oh.” Ahh.
“Same mom.” She shrugs her slender shoulders. “Different dad—his left when he was one, and then our mom met our dad and had me nine months later.”
“So, your dad raised Declan too?” I ask, keeping my tone casual.
“He’s the only dad Declan knows.”
“Huh.”
She props herself up on her elbow, watching me. “Why do you sound like you’re trying to connect dots?”
Probably because I’m trying to figure out how he’s turned into such a giant asshole.
“I’m not connecting dots.” I trace idle patterns along her bare shoulder. She’s wearing one of my tank tops and not much else. “I was wondering what your dynamic was.”
“The usual brother-sister thing,” she says. “Declan has always been competitive—no one forced him to play hockey. He likes winning awards. Big personality. Always learning the hard way.”
“He’s still all those things.”
She smiles faintly. “What can I say, he likes to win.”
“That so?”
“Yeah.” She huffs a quiet laugh. “If Dad told us to take out the trash, he’d race me to the curb. Full sprint. Like there was a trophy waiting by the mailbox like an idiot.” She shakes her head. “It used to drive me insane. Now, I’m used to it.”
None of this information surprises me.
“Do his girlfriends mind?”
Juliette mulls this over. “He hasn’t had many.”
“Really?”
She nods. “He’s intense. Hockey comes first—as you very well know. Being the best comes first.” Her fingers twist together in her lap. “I think most girls figure out pretty quickly that they’re second to all that.” She pauses. “Blaire can’t stand him.”
I like this Blaire chick already.
Juliette chuckles to herself. “She says he sucks the oxygen out of every room and that he’s a garbage human.”
“Why would she say a thing like that?” My curiosity is piqued.
“This goes back to high school,” she says. “She had the biggest crush on him. I mean—massive. She even took skating lessons so they’d have something in common.” A sad smile tugs at her mouth at the memory. “Blaire finally got the courage to ask him to the winter dance and he said sure.”