Total pages in book: 254
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
He made another one of those huff-laughs from his nose, that one a little louder than before. It was adorable.
“I’m trying to let you off the hook. You don’t need to embarrass me.” I eyed him. “I already have to work so hard to keep what I can to myself, thanks.”
He made another huff-laugh! “I’m trying to embarrass you? Why would you think that?”
“Because you’re laughing at me.” I pointed. “Right in my face.”
He started full-on chuckling, and I didn’t know how I’d missed the glimmer in his eyes, but it was there.
What did he have to be so amused over? Me admitting he was a hunk of a man out loud? Really? “It’s a compliment, you know,” I muttered.
His body sobered slowly as his gaze moved around my face some more and he sat up, bringing his chest back in touch with my arm and side. “Thank you for the compliment.” His mouth twitched just a little like he couldn’t help himself. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at the dumb shit coming out of your mouth. That’s what’s funny.”
Was he teasing me again? “I don’t say dumb shit.”
“I think you just proved a minute ago that you do sometimes.”
I blinked. “You looking to get bit again?”
His eyes lit up, and Henri leaned in to me. “You threatening me?”
I took in the rough bones of his face, the signs of humor in his eyes, in his body language. “Not very well if you’re smiling.” It was my turn to smile too. I couldn’t help it. Not when he was being this Henri. Dreamboat Henri. Half naked and playful and protective and everything anyone could ask for.
“The first bite was a freebie,” he warned. “The next one, you’ll be getting one right back, and I know exactly where it’ll go.”
I almost fell out of his lap.
The way my voice came out strangled and more excited than it had any business being would probably haunt me for the rest of my life but too bad. “Excuse me?” I howled, eating up his playfulness, boxing it up and planning on eating some more of it as a snack later.
Somehow, he leaned in a little closer. “Try me, Nina. Find out,” he seemed to tease me… threaten me… or maybe it was a goad.
Was it?
I wasn’t sure, but my nipples were hard.
I thought there might have been a good chance a part of me might have gone a little slick, a little wet, at what my brain was trying to interpret at this mythical-like specimen of a man flirting with me.
I needed to think about something else. Needed to talk to him about anything else. But… I was my own worst enemy.
“Are you going to tell me why you were laughing at me, or am I supposed to figure it out on my own?” I asked instead as I absorbed even more of the tiny details of his face that I’d never been close enough to notice before. A small scar below his lip that was slightly paler than the rest of his skin. One of his eyes was slightly darker in color than the other. How hadn’t I seen that before?
Had his bottom lip always been that full too?
“I don’t know if you want to know,” he said carefully.
“Cut me some slack, Fluff. You can keep most of your secrets to yourself. I’d like to know,” I tried.
“Sure about that?”
I nodded.
His eyes narrowed just slightly. “I keep forgetting your nose is the only thing not special about you.”
He wasn’t helping me not like him.
Henri didn’t wait for me to croak something, because that would have been the best I was capable of when he was being like this, touching me like this. “It’s funny to me,” he started to say in a rough, quiet voice, “that you would think—”
He stopped talking, his head turning in the direction of the clubhouse a moment before a high-pitched voice called out, “Henri?”
It was Agnes.
She was on the porch in bubblegum pink pajamas, looking ruffled and sleepy.
A small, small part of me deflated on the spot as disappointment ran through my veins because she couldn’t have waited ten more seconds to wander outside. What had he been about to say? And had he been flirting with me? It felt like it. Where was Sienna when I needed her?
I didn’t wait for him to gesture that he needed to get up, I stood with a gulp and held out my hand.
Henri met my gaze before taking it, his long fingers curling around mine, and I helped him stand too, as much as I could, considering he outweighed me by at least a hundred pounds.
“Everything is all right,” his voice carried to the little girl, sounding more than a little different, hoarser than it’d been a minute ago. “I’m coming, Ladybug.”