Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
I just stare up at him, mouth agape at all his hulking godlike muscledom. “I don’t?”
“No.” He lifts a finger beneath my chin and pops my mouth closed. “What do you want to do? Because that’s what we do. Whatever we want. Not what you think you should. Just whatever you really, really want. We can go climb back into bed. Or we can go get separate bedrooms if last night was just a one-night thing. We can—”
“Can we take a shower together, then order breakfast?” I cut him off, lifting my eyebrows in hope.
He grins wide. “Absolutely.”
“Then that. That’s what I want,” I say in a rush.
He saunters into the bathroom in all of his glorious nakedness and turns on the shower. While his back is turned, I quickly finish up and flush the toilet, then go to wash my hands. The whole time, I’m staring in the mirror at his taut backside.
“You, um, work out a lot?”
His deep chuckle echoes off the bathroom tiles. Then he looks over his broad shoulder at me. “It’s kind of required for the job.”
Now that it’s the bright light of day and I’m a little less lust-drunk, standing here naked in front of such a gorgeous man is a far more self-conscious activity than it was last night. Is showering with the lights off a thing? Lights off showering should really be a thing.
“I don’t know.” I bend my arms like a Picasso painting to cover as much of my torso and boobs as possible at once. I’d say he looks like the statue of David, except David could only wish he had as much hanging between his legs as Isaak does. “Plenty of bouncers are just big guys with beer bellies. I could really handle you having a healthy paunch right about now.”
He laughs full out and turns around to me. “I have aspirations of doing more than just be a bouncer. Plus, then I couldn’t do this.”
He stalks over the couple of steps to me and hikes me easily into his arms. I screech as he flings me through the air, my arms clinging to his neck and my legs wrapping around his waist.
It feels so good being in his arms again. But also, chest to chest like this, it’s the first time all morning I’ve really looked deeply into the gray eyes that are now locked on mine.
“Hey.” His deep voice is always more raspy and growly in the mornings. “You okay about everything last night?”
I nod because speech feels like an upper-level executive function I’m not quite capable of at the moment.
“Cause I know that was sudden and…” A frown enters his forehead. “You were in a vulnerable spot after a night like that, and maybe I was taking advantage of my position and experience—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Speech thankfully returns in a rush. “You didn’t take advantage of anything. You’re not my boss or my professor. You’re not even that much older than me.”
Thirty-sex. Thirty-sex. Thirty-sex.
He narrows his eyebrows. “I’d say fifteen years counts, babe.”
I swallow, biting my bottom lip. I usually make it a rule to never date over ten. I know, I know, but guys my age are simpletons, and even the thirty-year-olds haven’t been much better. My therapist says I need to stop dating men older than me. But has she met a twenty-two-year-old boy? Drew’s the only one I can even tolerate, and he’s—
Your fiancé.
Shit. While yes, we are in an open relationship, after last night, I can’t imagine he’d like me sleeping with Isaak any more than I would him with Bethany Anne. And not because of jealousy in either case but because sleeping with people who are too close can start to get… messy.
He shifts me in his arms like he’s about to set me down. “So maybe you should shower solo.”
“What?” I cling tighter to his neck. “No way.”
But he’s all but set me on my feet, so I’m just hanging from him with my arms around my neck. I finally let go and land the last foot down to the tile, then stare up at him, both of us frowning at one another now.
“No big deal, then.” I try to play it off. “Last night was just us blowing off steam, right? And we’re both consenting adults. Next year, I get my Ph.D. I’ve always been old for my age.”
Isaak tilts his head at me, a compassion I don’t want to see in his eyes. “You know that’s not a thing, right?”
“What do you mean? Of course, it’s a thing. Plenty of kids grow up too young. With the mother and father I had, I practically raised myself.”
“Me, too,” he says, “but it doesn’t mean I wasn’t still just a kid when I signed up for the Army at eighteen.”
“I’m not eighteen,” I grind out through my teeth.