Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
“Why don’t I just buy us some drinks?”
“Money doesn’t exchange hands here. That’s considered garish,” she explained matter-of-factly. “It’s all included in the membership fee.”
“Out of pure curiosity, about how much is that fee?”
“Oh. Huh.” She blinked. Frowned. “I have no idea.”
Okay, so she was that kind of rich. The kind where she didn’t even feel the probable six-figure deduction from her bank account on a yearly basis. Sig had money, but his star had significantly risen since he’d signed his initial contract with the Bearcats—and he’d definitely been undervalued on his way into the league. Hopefully soon, chances were that he could belong to this stuffy-ass club, if he so chose. But would he ever? Fuck no.
Right?
Sig had grown up dirt-poor, thanks to his father, but even now that he was financially comfortable, he still shunned the finer things. Didn’t want them and definitely didn’t need them. An hour ago, Sig wouldn’t have believed there was a woman alive who could convince him that a membership card to this place was worth the cash. But hell if he wasn’t considering the opposite now. Along with the bare legs that flashed as she sat down on the couch beside him, the hem skimming high, so blessedly high, before she tugged down the white pleats closer to her knees. Crossed her shiny thighs.
Sig swallowed a fist-sized knot. “All right, if drinks are included with a membership, why don’t you just go ask for a bottle of champagne?”
“It tastes better when it’s an ill-gotten gain.”
“You fit right in with the bankers who probably belong to this place.”
She flashed him a grin. “It’s not that I enjoy ripping anyone off. It’s just that . . .” She looked around the lounge and he could tell she’d seen it thousands of times before. “I just try and take some excitement wherever I can. My days are scheduled very meticulously. Early morning practice, followed by lunch with some acquaintance or another. More practice. Followed by tennis lessons—”
“You keep saying practice. Practice for what?”
“I play the harp. I’m a harpist.” She fluttered her fingers for emphasis, then proceeded to look at them as if they were foreign objects. “Let me ask you something. What is the point of being labeled a prodigy if I have to practice all the time? Doesn’t prodigy mean I just get to show up and be amazing?”
“Do you want me to call one of my harp prodigy friends and ask them for you?”
A laugh burst out of her, satisfying something very deep in his chest. “Are you a hockey prodigy?”
“God no, I had to work my ass off. Now I get to show up and be amazing.”
She huffed her lips up into a half smile. Those blue eyes ran laps around his face, like she wanted to see inside of his head. Or maybe surprised to find that he was unexpected to her. And he liked that. He liked being something unknown for her, the way she seemed to be for him. “I think I might like to watch you play hockey sometime, Mister Gauthier.”
“Come to Boston. I’ll let you watch me do whatever you want.”
For long moments, she simply stared at him, as if trying to categorize or figure him out but not being able to quite do so. Eventually, her gaze drifted down to his mouth and hung out there, slowly meandering back up to make eye contact. “Is it very forward and extremely soon if I say I’m attracted to you?” she whispered.
“I’m only pissed I didn’t get to say it first.” At some point, they’d gravitated closer together on the couch. Though it was hard to say who’d made the move, their thighs were now pressed together, bodies turned slightly, his head tipping down toward hers from above. “I think I might like to watch you play the harp, Miss Clifford.”
“Well, we’re just a couple of people wanting to watch each other do things, aren’t we?”
“Looks that way.”
“I have somewhere to be tonight.”
His right eye twitched. “You got a boyfriend, Chlo?”
She pursed her lips. “Would you steal me away if I did?”
This was no time to lie. “In a heartbeat.”
Her pupils dilated, lips parting on a quiet laugh.
Briefly, her attention ticked left. “The bartender just left to get ice. I’m going to make my move on that bottle of champagne, because I feel myself on the verge of making impulsive decisions.”
Sig quirked a brow. “And the champagne is going to stop you?”
“No,” she breathed, rising fluidly to her feet. “It’s going to help me make excuses for my behavior.”
Bemused and horny and frankly, in awe, he watched her butt twitch the whole damn way to the bar, his cock turning stiff as a mallet in his jeans. Sig wanted desperately for this to be a wild, cosmic attraction thing. A lightning strike of lust. Because these unknown feelings of kismet and possessiveness and fascination that she’d inspired in him so quickly were scary as shit.