Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Her gaze darts to the window, where my bike is still parked.
“You’re riding that in this weather?” she asks, disbelief and maybe a little admiration creeping into her tone.
“Plan is, yeah.”
She shakes her head, a small smile tugging at her mouth for the first time. “You bikers are insane.”
I laugh coyly. “Mostly.”
She gives me a once-over, eyes flicking from my boots to my cut and back to my face.
I smirk. “What can I say? Sanity is overrated.”
Silence settles again, but it’s different now. Less electric, more awkward. Charged, but not with fear.
I jerk my chin toward the door. “You should get wherever you’re going before it gets colder.”
Her gaze flicks to the sleeping bag she left crammed in the front passenger seat of her car. She flushes.
“Right,” she states coming back to the moment. “Yeah.”
She reaches for the doorknob, then pauses and looks back at me.
“What you did,” She swallows. “Out there. I don’t know if it’s this way everywhere, but around here, a lot of men would’ve just watched. Or told me to calm down. Or taken his side.”
“I’m not a lot of men,” I respond simply.
Her eyes meet mine, and something there warms. Softens.
“No,” she says quietly. “You’re not.”
She takes a breath like she’s about to say something else, then thinks better of it. “I’ll, uh… leave you to get settled,” she finishes instead. “If the heat doesn’t kick on right away, sometimes you have to jiggle the thermostat. Just gently. It’s temperamental.”
“Got it,” I confirm. “Treat the thermostat with easy hands like a woman,” I tell her with a wink. She takes a sharp inhale and then gives me a small smile.
She opens the door, cold air rushing in. She steps out onto the porch, then glances back at me over her shoulder.
“And Tony?”
The way she says my name sends a little jolt through me.
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
Her lips curve into a quick, unexpected smile. “Next time you need an exit strategy, maybe just grab my hand first. Save the kiss for when my ex isn’t watching.” Then she winks and I feel that shit straight to my cock.
“Noted,” I say, even though part of my brain that’s been dead a long time is thinking we might not need an exit strategy for the next one.
She gives a little nod, then pulls the door closed behind her.
The latch clicks.
I stand there for a second, the quiet of the cabin wrapping around me. Through the window, I watch her cross the small stretch of porch, the porch light haloing her hair, and hurry to her car. She climbs in starts the engine, and pulls out of the drive.
Her taillights disappear down the road.
Gone.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and turn back into the cabin, shoulders relaxing for the first time in what feels like all day.
The place is still, peaceful. Warm. The welcome basket sits on the table like something out of a catalog. The couch looks like it might not ruin my back.
I roll my neck, feeling the leftover tension from nearly cracking a man’s skull and kissing a stranger in the same five-minute span.
“Hell of a start to vacation,” I mutter.
Then I walk outside, grabbing my bag and returning. Back to the couch, I drop my duffel down, the old piece creaking in response.
Outside, the night settles in around the cabin, clear and cold. Somewhere down the mountain, a woman settles in wherever she is and I wonder if she can feel the lingering of my lips the way I can hers.
I don’t like complications. I don’t like bullshit. I don’t like anyone or anything disturbing my peace.
For the first time in a long time, though, what happened tonight, I’m not mad. Sure, it was inconvenient not really the way I wanted things to start, but that kiss, well, I don’t mind.
Eight
Holley
I don’t hear my alarm so much as feel it—an angry vibration against the side door panel beside my hip, rattling through the cold interior of the car and into my bones. I’ve been awake for hours anyway, drifting in and out of the kind of half-sleep that never fully arrives. My toes are numb, even tucked under me the way I’d curled up in the backseat sometime around midnight, and every breath ghosts white in the air before fading away, reminding me again of just how stupid last night had been.
I should have gone to a hotel. I should have turned around the minute I realized how quickly the temperature was dropping. If my card got declined since the money hasn’t cleared for the stay yet, then I should have gone home. But I didn’t, because I didn’t want to walk into the house and find him. Or worse, not find him and worry he cancels the rest of the week.
I don’t want to think about that.