Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
I moaned, arching into the touch, imagining Theo covering my mouth with his palm and urging me to be quiet.
Someone might hear.
My fingers circled faster, hips gyrating as my breath hitched in my throat and my heart rate climbed higher and higher with each touch. I could see his eyes. I could feel his breath hot on my lips, his mouth just centimeters from mine, just like they had been that night in Positano.
Kiss me.
I thought the words so loud I swore I heard them rolling off my tongue in real life. Maybe they had. Maybe I was begging Theo in the quiet of the room where I was alone to take me and tell me nothing else mattered.
Maybe I was summoning him like a spirit on a cold night.
The faster I circled, the more my imagination ran wild. I twisted in the sheets, thrashing this way and that, like I was chasing the feeling as much as I was trying to escape it. Everything about it felt wrong. I shouldn’t be thinking of Theo as I slipped two fingers deep inside me and rubbed my clit hard with my free hand, but he was all I saw.
Just then, three hard knocks pounded on the door.
My eyes shot open and I nearly fell off the bed with how fast I ripped my hands from under my panties. Reality crashed over me like an avalanche of snow, my breaths labored as I stared at the door.
Did I imagine it?
There were three more knocks, and then I wondered if I’d been unknowingly performing a seance, because Theo’s deep voice came muffled through the wood.
“Aspen? Are you in there?”
Oh, God.
I jumped up out of the bed, running over to the dresser mirror. “Just a minute!” I called, and then I ran my hands through my tussled hair, pulling it over one shoulder. My cheeks were too flushed for him to believe I was just lying around, so I ripped off my sweatpants quickly and pulled on a pair of track shorts.
Then, stupidly, I took my shirt off and answered the door in my sports bra.
Theo stood outside the door, just like I’d imagined moments before, only he looked even better than in my fantasy. His emerald eyes sparked in the chandelier light from the salon, and he smirked, letting those eyes trail over my chest, my stomach, my legs.
My body hummed under his gaze like a universe being born from nothing.
“What were you doing?” he asked with an arched brow. “I thought I heard some… noises.”
“Yoga,” I said quickly, hoping my smile was convincing. The fact that I had a light sheen of sweat on my neck and chest would surely help the case. “Just needed to unwind a little.”
Theo grinned wider, but something in that smirk made me feel as transparent as wax paper. “I know the feeling.”
My cheeks burned hotter, and I leaned a hip against the doorframe, looking behind him before I let my eyes settle on his again. “Why are you down here, anyway?”
He shrugged. “Was just taking a walk.”
“Just taking a walk,” I echoed, crossing my arms. I waited for him to tell me the truth, but he just smiled back at me like I already knew it.
A loud chorus of laughter came from downstairs, and Theo cleared his throat, nodding in the direction of the crew mess.
“Why aren’t you with them?”
I fought the urge to scream again like I had into my pillow when I thought of Joel, of our fight, of the way we seemed to always be fighting lately. He was down there now.
With Ivy.
“I’m just over partying,” I finally answered, and the way the words left me was like just saying them was so exhausting I needed to sleep for a decade.
Theo nodded like he knew everything I wasn’t saying, then he took a tiny, minuscule step toward me that felt more like a shift of the entire world. “Want to sneak onto the island with me?”
I blanched. “What?”
Theo smiled. He knew he didn’t need to repeat himself for me to know what he’d said.
My heart hammered harder in my chest, warning me as if my sister had taken over the organ.
You have to stay away from him.
You cannot be alone with him.
You still have a boyfriend.
You need to talk to Joel.
But the more my sister’s voice came into my head, the angrier I became.
I’d tried talking to Joel. I’d tried working things out. All he wanted to do was party and be with the girl he’d groped right in front of me.
He didn’t care that he’d hurt me.
If anything, he was trying to make me feel crazy for being upset at all.
“They’ll be busy for hours,” Theo said on a shrug when I didn’t say anything else, casting a glance behind him before his eyes were on me again. He stepped even closer, his voice just above a whisper. “And from what I heard,” he said, biting the inside of his lower lip, “it sounds like maybe you need to blow off a little steam.”