Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80153 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80153 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
His hand rises for another high-five. Once more I smack back, and foolishly I wait for him to link hands with mine.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he gathers the plates on the tray, carries it to the door, sets it outside, then dials room service for a pickup. He brushes one hand against the other, and my heart free-falls. This is when he leaves. This is when our evening ends.
He raises a hand. “Question.”
“Answer.”
“How do you feel about movies?”
“Love them. The good ones, that is.”
“Mission: Impossible? Is that a good one?”
I laugh. “Duh. More like a great one.”
He gestures to the big-screen TV facing the bed. “Want to watch? When we checked in, I saw it was on pay-per-view. Unless you want to stream something from our phones.”
The free-falling heart screeches to a stop. “Yes. Mission: Impossible.” My answer comes out more breathlessly than I intend.
I know this is a bad idea. I know this is flirting with danger. But if we managed to eat dinner and chat in this hotel room, we can certainly manage to watch a movie.
He eyes my bed then hops on it, stretching out his long legs and parking his hands behind his head. He looks over at me, and I’m officially frozen. He’ll need to pluck me from the ground like an ice sculpture because I can’t move.
Where am I supposed to watch? The floor? The table?
The answer comes when he pats the spot next to him on the mattress.
My insides go up in flames, and a million dangerous thoughts speed through my head. Do I actually lie down next to him? Do I put my body near his? Horizontal and inches apart?
I’m fully clothed. He is, too. But still . . . that’s a bed.
“Do you . . .?” I start to ask, but talking is so hard in this overheated state that I can’t finish the sentence—think this is a good idea?
He must sense my question because he rolls his eyes. “It’s a lot more comfortable than sitting in those awkward chairs for a two-hour flick,” he says, reaching for the TV remote on the nightstand and clicking to the menu. “C’mon.”
Here goes nothing.
I lie next to him, and he turns on the movie.
I don’t know what to do with my arms. I let them hang at my sides, but I bet that looks dumb. I cross them at my chest. I bet I look mad. I lace my hands together across my belly. I bet I look prim.
I want to just lounge and stretch and be cool as Tom Cruise rappels into a vault in the CIA’s headquarters, but I can’t focus. I can’t think about a single thing that Ethan Hunt is doing on the screen when I’m literally six inches away from the man I’ve crushed on, lusted after, and now fear I’m starting to like.
Truly like.
Jones watches the screen intently, and I wish this was hard for him, too. All I can think about is the six inches between us and how much I wish they were zero. Half a foot feels insurmountable. But at the same time, if I moved my hand a little bit, then maybe a little more, I would touch his leg.
Subconsciously, or perhaps not so subconsciously at all, I let my hand fall from my waist to the mattress. A little closer now.
His gaze roams to my hand, dangerously near his hip.
He turns to me. His eyes lock with mine, and my breathing stops. I want to look away, but I want to stare into his deep blue eyes. With his voice a little gravelly, he asks, “Do you like the movie?”
My heart thumps hard against my chest. I lick my lips. “It’s great.”
“You’re not going to fall asleep, are you?”
I shake my head, my hair spilling against the pillow. He watches as my hair moves. I watch his face. He looks at my hand. I glance at his hand. I swear it slides a millimeter closer to mine, then another, then more.
I’m a shooting star.
I’m lit up.
My body is full of electrons and neurons, pulsing and glowing bright.
His eyes stay on mine, not on the screen, not on Ethan. “If you do, though, you can fall asleep on me.”
I swallow, but I can’t get past the dryness in my throat. I don’t think I can get past the desire to take him up on that, to snuggle up against him like the orange kitten, to let him pet me, stroke me, touch me.
Make me purr.
“Want to?” he asks. Is he saying what I think he’s saying?
“Sleep on you?” Each word has its own longitude and latitude.
He nods. “Rest your head on me.”
Oh God.
Oh, my.
He lifts his arm, making room for me to rest my head in the crook, right there. I want to, and I’m terrified of how much I want to.