Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 106150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
His lips brushed against my temple. “Careful,” he whispered before pulling out of me.
I sucked in a breath. The loss of him hurt far worse than having him inside me had, and I immediately wanted him back. I wanted another chance to feel him the way I’d felt before, feel the sharpest, edgiest orgasm I’d ever imagined.
“Stay right here,” Bash murmured, moving off me carefully. My eyes roved over his naked body, sweat-damp and flushed. The thick muscles of his pale ass bounced as he walked to the bathroom, and the clench and flex of his thighs as he climbed back onto the bed a moment later was possibly even better.
I closed my eyes with a happy sigh, committing it all to memory. Years from now, when Bash had forgotten all about the time he fucked the Burrito Bandito, I’d still be savoring this moment.
“You have a dopey grin on your face,” he said with a smile in his voice. I opened my eyes to see him return with a wet washcloth. “You look like I feel.”
That was probably the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me. I winked at him, still too come-drunk to feel shy. “Then you must feel amazing.”
He leaned over and cleaned me off. “Even better than that,” he assured me. He dragged the cloth over my hip, then traced his finger over the damp skin. “Tell me about this?”
I knew without looking down that he was tracing the simple black lines of the tattoo on my hip.
“It’s a caduceus,” I explained. “And at the top of the rod is a…”
“Daisy,” he concluded. “You got this for your sister?”
I nodded. “Funny thing. The caduceus is commonly thought to represent medicine now, but that’s kind of a mistake. For the ancient Greeks, it was a symbol of Hermes, the messenger god, who was also the god of negotiations and commerce and eloquence and…”
“Lies?” Bash said, amused. His fingers playing over my skin made my very satisfied dick want to try for round three.
“Yeah. I mean, that’s not why I got it. The guy at the tattoo shop was the one who told me that,” I confessed sheepishly. “I got it because it symbolizes, uh…”
Shit. Just like before, I wanted to tell Bash about my project—about how I hoped it would change processes in emergency medical response so that people like my sister get more accurate trauma care, and maybe some other brother wouldn’t have to lose his twin. I wanted to share my excitement over everything I’d learned about emergency processes and hospital administration and budget cuts, and to hear Bash’s feedback since I knew he would probably have a thousand intelligent thoughts that would help me refine it.
It felt strange that we’d shared so much, talked about my mortifying toddler pictures, for heaven’s sake, but not discussed this crucial thing that had consumed my life for the past few years. Not talking about it felt almost like another, bigger lie.
But it also seemed wrong to bring that up now, in this bed. Like it was the sort of thing that would steal the light from Bash’s eyes and make him pull away from me.
You only have a little longer, I reminded myself. What’s one more lie?
“It symbolizes hope,” I said because it was partly true.
“And that’s why you touch it when you’re nervous.” He brushed his thumb over the lines once more, then lowered his head and kissed it so tenderly my breath hitched. When he lifted his head again, his eyes met mine and caught. Held. A tiny frisson of something passed between us but was gone before I could name it.
I froze, my mouth suddenly dry. I had no idea what to say or do. No idea what was happening between us or if Bash felt it, too.
After that one fraught second, Bash cleared his throat, stood up, and returned the washcloth to the bathroom without a word. When he strolled back in, he began rooting around in his open suitcase for his phone charger and plugged it in while giving an exaggerated yawn. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to sleep like the dead.”
Idiot. You’re starting to believe your own fairy tales, Rowe Prince.
I swallowed down a bubble of disappointment and turned my face into the pillow. “Same. And you promised me we’d have all night. I’m not leaving this bed,” I warned. “If you were planning on sleeping without a leech stuck to your side, you might want to switch bedrooms with me.”
Bash yanked the covers from underneath me, then crawled into bed before settling them over us both. “Fortunately, I have no problem with leeches. They’re fascinating creatures. Remind me sometime to tell you about the time I went kayaking in Patagonia and how you should always listen to the locals, especially when they tell you to put tobacco in your socks.”