Total pages in book: 248
Estimated words: 236036 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1180(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 787(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236036 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1180(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 787(@300wpm)
I shifted to throw the weight of the blankets off me—only what my hand encountered wasn’t a quilt. I opened my eyes to stare not at my sunny yellow pillowcase but at an expanse of blue. An expanse broken by a vee promising far more than cotton sheets lay beneath it.
Not a fever then
A man.
And may I say—what a man!
“No, you may not!” I scolded silently though I secretly had to agree. The man whose chest I’d been using like a mattress wasn’t anywhere near as soft as one. His chest was broad and firm against mine, his arms were as rigid as any seatbelt around me, and his thighs were as solid as rocks beneath me. When I shifted to sit back a bit, I discovered I could throw “hard as wood” into the equation.
I’d never been more appreciative of the fact I could claim my sore neck as an actual reason not to lift my head. Not that I minded the feel of the bulge beneath my butt, but because I didn’t want to let the man know exactly how happy seeing it made me. He’d spent the entire day helping me and didn’t deserve to have me grinding against him and…
Who do you think you’re fooling? What’s that song? Oh, right, “Save a Horse—”
I had to admit, she wasn’t entirely out of line as that was exactly the song that had just popped into my head—
“Are you singing?”
My head snapped back while I simultaneously planted my palms against his chest and shoved. I’d only meant to move off his cock but wound up slipping into the gap between the table and bench, my butt hanging out into space, and yelling, “Owwwweeeee,” as I tried to scramble to grab the table top for support.
“Well, that’s one way to dismount I suppose,” Lincoln said and then chuckled even as he reached for me.
My face flamed and as much as I wanted to fall back into his arms—then preferably continue falling through a giant hole in the ground—I just couldn’t. Not when I felt something wet spreading across my butt.
If there was even a remote chance that I hadn’t yet made a big enough fool of myself, it disappeared with the knowledge that I’d just wet myself. I had no clue how to cope with this so did the only thing left to ensure he never wanted to see me, much less touch me. I burst into tears… again.
Funny thing though, his eyes didn’t narrow into slits to glare at me. He didn’t hiss for me to stop embarrassing him. He didn’t shove me the rest of the way off his lap before sliding out of the booth to walk toward the door. Nope, not Lincoln. Like his ancestors before him, he did the only thing he could…
He cowboy’d up.
Despite my attempt to escape, he scooped me up, and when I tried to slap at his arms so he wouldn’t discover what I’d just done, he ignored me and slipped one arm under my ass and pulled me right back into the saddle of his lap.
“You’re all right—”
“Nooo, I peed,” I whispered.
“I can’t hear you, pixie. Here, write it down,” he said, reaching past me for the pad.
“No!” I reached out and grabbed his wrist. No way I was going to draw wetting my pants! Releasing his wrist, I pulled on his shirt until he leaned down close enough I could speak into his ear. “I peed.”
He had the grace not to laugh, though I would swear I saw the ghost of a smile as he straightened, but it was gone by the time he shook his head.
“No, babygirl, you didn’t wet yourself.” He slid from the booth with me still in his arms.
When I tried to lift myself up so his arm wouldn’t come into contact with my wet butt, he simply tightened his hold and twisted to the side and pointed to the table. “Pixie, it’s not pee, it’s ice cream.”
Sure enough, the dish that had held not one or two, but three, huge scoops of ice cream on top of a halved banana and dotted with a half dozen cherries was no longer capable of holding anything as it was now sitting upside-down. Understanding dawned when I realized all my flailing about to grab something to keep me from hitting the floor beneath the booth had knocked the dish over. All I’d accomplished was to make sure I was no longer eating my prize, I was now wearing it on the back of my overalls after it had dripped over the edge of the table.
Despite the pain it caused, I tilted my head back again to look at his face and saw no derision, no malice, no judgment of my worth. The only thing reflected in the depths of his cobalt eyes was acceptance of me just the way I was.