Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
I learned that a long time ago.
I don’t like getting hurt but some days I think it’s worth it to remember my old life.
When I don’t answer his question, he nods like I did. “They call you Charlie, but that’s not really your name, is it?”
Rather than answer, I swallow.
Hard.
“Do you remember what you were called before Charlie?”
I nod again.
“Can you tell me?”
“Charlie, don’t!” screams the lady from the floor.
“Look at me, kid,” Bannon says in a dad like voice. “Don’t look at them.”
My blue eyes glue themselves onto his.
“Tell me, little dude. What’s your real name? What’s the special name that was first given to you?”
**
The sound of footsteps crossing the hardwood floor to my left results in me swiftly reaching under the mattress to my right, unholstering the weapon, and rolling onto my side to aim it at the intruder. “Not another step!”
Arley releases a high pitch scream prior to shrieking, “Why do you have a mattress gun?!”
Words of relief prepare to fly off my tongue, yet the sight of her in just a pair of black panties and the shirt I bought her yesterday have a sexually frustrated grouse taking its place.
“Why aren’t you wearin’ any goddamn pants?!” Stating the fact out loud prompts my shaft to swell further until I flex my thigh muscles to redirect the blood flow. “Seriously, Angel Cake, where are your,” my eyes slowly travel upward as the weapon journeys downward, “pants? You had on pants before we went to bed. I distinctly remember that. They even had mustard stains on them from the burger you ate earlier.”
“Don’t say that like burgers aren’t a messy food.”
“Jus’ ‘cause they’re messy doesn’t mean you have to turn eatin’ them into a paint by numbers situation.”
“The pickles slipped out!”
“Pants,” I abruptly huff to get us back on the subject. “Where are your pants, Arley?”
Her fingertips fall to tug at the shirt not covering a damn thing. Especially not the rewind, pause, play, fast forward tattoo on her toffee brown, inner left thigh. The same tattoo that makes me fucking miserable every summer at the lake thanks to being able to see the sexy thing and not touch it.
Fuck. Me.
What I would give to touch it.
Her.
My tone grows firm along with my expression. “Arlette.”
“I took them off!”
“Why?”
“I’mma hot sleeper.” An innocent shoulder shrug is wedged between statements. “I actually prefer to sleep naked.”
Visions of her wearing only a smile while rolling around in my sheets begin to invade my mind leaving me with no choice but to sit up completely straight. Flex my muscles again. Distract myself from mental images I’d take down a small country just to get a real-life glimpse of.
Now is not the time for that shit of all shit.
I need to focus.
I gotta focus.
Arley braces her body against the nearest wall in such a way I’m practically face to face with the sheer black material stopping me from having the best breakfast a man could ever ask for.
I instantly shut my eyes on a wolfish growl and give the back of my neck a hard squeeze.
Which torture tactic is this again?
And how quickly can I make it stop?
“Now,” it takes all the willpower I have to force my eyes to hers rather than the area I should be putting my signature on instead of the paperwork we’ve yet to file to make this security detail official, “why do you have a mattress gun?”
“The same reason I have a toilet gun.”
“You have a toilet gun?!”
“And a kitchen gun.”
“A kitchen gun?!”
“And a towel gun.”
“Why the hell do the towels need a gun!?”
“There isn’t a room in this penthouse that doesn’t have some sort of weapon secured in it, plus, the walls are reinforced because my father’s construction company – Wahl to Wahl – reinforces the penthouse levels of all their properties by design. It makes them a shit ton more expensive but also a shit ton more defendable in case of an attack from the sky level versus the ground.” Bending my legs to rest my arms over them is attached to my own innocent shrug. “I’m always prepared.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s what the Boy Scouts meant by that motto.”
“Maybe not, but it’s definitely what the Man Scouts did.”
“Ugh.” A look of disgust instantly covers her expression. “That sounds like a bad Village People tribute bar. Is that really what they call the military?”
“No, I jus’ get a kick out of it when you make that face this early.” She narrows her gaze in my direction prompting me to lightly laugh. “And that one.”
Honestly, I love seeing any expression from her first thing in the morning.
Our “too tired to drive home” sleepovers have always been my favorite since the first time they happened.
There’s just something about seeing her so relaxed and so content before the day has a chance to color her with its words.