Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94678 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94678 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Regretfully, it isn’t the type of exposure I want Emerson to learn about.
“Oh my god!” The teen’s breaths whip out of her mouth along with her words. “You’re Mikhail Dokovic!”
“Dokovic?” Her mother murmurs, her eyes raking over my face as a backpack is shoved into her chest. “As in, Ellis Dokovic’s son?” Her eyes flicker as if she is recalling me sitting next to my father at my grandfather’s televised wake. “Oh dear…”
Before I can assure her that she didn’t insult the future president of our great country—Andrik’s shoulders bore that burden from the day of his conception—the teen re-enters the conversation. “Mikhail Dokovic, as in Bachelor of the Year finalist three years straight. And...”—she pauses, building the suspense, only speaking when she wrangles a glossy magazine and an iPhone out of the backpack she shoved into her mother’s chest—“Russia’s most prolific fuckboy.”
The mother scoffs again, adding to the shame heating my cheeks.
Emerson remains quiet.
With the magazine stuffed under her arm, the teen lifts her iPhone to document our exchange. No one believes anything these days unless you have proof, and although this isn’t the shoot I was preparing to undertake today, I’d rather mollify the teen with a handful of snaps than see the details of my escapade splashed over the covers of magazines tomorrow morning.
A fan will defend its idol to the end of time—if the idol remembers they’d be nothing without their fans.
Emerson twists in enough time to miss the blinding flash of multiple images being snapped in quick succession, and then her hands shoot up to protect her eyes from further damage.
Well, that’s what my heart is telling my head.
My head believes her motives are more sinister, like she’s embarrassed to be photographed with me. And its beliefs worsen when she offers to be the photographer for the teenager.
The blonde eagerly nods before punching a hole in Emerson’s plan. “You should get in a handful of images, too. We can take selfies.”
“No, it’s fine.” Emerson brushes off her offer with a wave of her hand before she snatches the iPhone from her grasp and switches places with her.
She pretends she’s not knowledgeable about how iPhones operate, her ruse long enough to remove any unwanted photos from the teen’s album before she snaps a handful of images of us.
The teen’s excitement is infectious. Even the mother gets in a handful of photographs toward the end of our mini shoot. Her sourpuss expression never alters, but she takes part—unlike Emerson. Not once does she accept their numerous offers to be photographed with me.
Her constant denials nosedive my mood and have me grimacing in the last handful of snaps instead of smiling.
Chapter 21
Emerson
Our kiss and grind-up was everything I could have hoped for, but as I lead our walk away from a gleaming teen and a middle-aged lady with a “Vote 1 Dokovic” pin fastened to her water bottle, I can’t shake the feeling of sadness weaving between the lust still thickening my veins.
Mikhail has never been good at masking his feelings, though he tries his best now. The way his eyes never fully meet mine while instructing me to be careful while scaling over another grime-soaked boulder announces he is attempting to re-erect the walls our kiss lowered.
When he holds out his hand in offering at the opening of the trail, I try to convince myself that he’s more concerned about me slipping again than other matters, but uncertainty about everything lingers during our trek back to his bike.
Unlike our climb, our descent is done in silence. We walk back to the semi-isolated lot, the sound of the waterfall cresting behind us fading as rapidly as my hope that I’ll make it out of this arrangement in one piece.
Old feelings have been bubbling at the surface since the will reading, but they’ve reached the boiling point now. Our make-out session at the crest of the waterfall was too hot for them not to bubble over.
“Here. Put this on. I don’t want you getting sick.” Mikhail removes his leather jacket before draping it over my shoulders and pulling my hair out of the collar.
After stuffing my arms into the openings, I pull his coat in, loving that it smells like us, before asking, “What about you? Won’t you be cold?”
He smiles like his eyes aren’t gauging the honesty of my fretful tone before he murmurs, “I’ll be fine.”
After hooking his leg over his bike, he assists me onto the back. Since I’m wearing his coat, he can’t warm my hands in its pockets this time, so he tucks them under his shirt instead. The bumps on his abs and a handful of felonious hairs tickle my fingertips when he kicks over his bike and revs the engine. It switches some of my worries back to lust, but only a smidge.