Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 75720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Jake— I’m so sorry. I’m sure he loved you, like you said, but you also didn’t deserve that reaction from him,” he said after swallowing a gulp of the white wine. “No one does.”
“I agree, on the flip side though, it was a moment that taught me who I really was and who I never wanted to become. It’s so weird how love and monsters can live so closely together under the same roof. Because I’m sure my dad did love me, but the claws and teeth were only one wrong word away from coming out and shredding me to pieces.”
Noah nodded. When had we gotten so close on the couch? No longer was I even able to lean on the armrest. Instead, my only option would be to lean on Noah’s knee, inches away from mine. I decided not to make things weird and kept my hands to myself.
“I’m glad it didn’t break you, though,” he said, sucking in a deep breath. “You made it through all of that and turned into a better man because of it. That’s something that would make any dad proud of their son.” His smile flashed, warm and bright, like a warm winter sun thawing away a thin layer of powdery snow. Bright and pure and fresh. He raised his arms in a stretch, his T-shirt lifting up and showing a flash of soft skin highlighted by a dark trail of hair that went down from his belly button and disappeared under his shorts. He swallowed down a yawn. “Sorry, I don’t think I’ve been up this late in years.”
I glanced at the clock on the wall, the big blue hands pointing to one in the morning.
I made a move to stand. “Yeah, maybe we should get to bed.”
“I don’t mind staying up a little longer,” Noah quickly said, stopping me from getting up. “I’m having a good time.”
“I am, too,” I said, my heart hammering in the same way it had when I was on the precipice of getting my first kiss.
Fuck.
The wine was getting to me. Not only did my muscles start feeling like they were infused with Jell-O, but my thoughts started to swirl down the drain faster than I realized. I should probably be excusing myself and getting ready for bed, but instead, I moved closer to Noah on the couch, using a reach for my wineglass as an excuse.
I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to call it a night. I was having too much fun, and judging by the glint in Noah’s green eyes, he was telling the truth when he said the same.
And those lips… fuck. He had such sexy lips. Slightly pouty but easily turned upward for that thousand-watt smile of his. Pillowy, too, with a dip at his cupid’s bow.
“Do I have something on my mouth?” Noah asked, bringing a thumb up and rubbing his bottom lip so that I could see his teeth.
“What? Oh no, no, I was just, uh…”
He arched a brow, cocked a smile.
“Staring?” he said, completing my sentence.
“Not really staring. I think I blinked a couple of times.”
He narrowed his eyes. “So that doesn’t count as staring?”
“No, I don’t think it does.”
Noah’s eyes dropped to my lips, and he made a show of blinking before bringing his gaze back up to mine. I couldn’t hold back the laughter. It spread to Noah, the walls between us quickly crumbling, chipped away at the base and turning to dust with every new belly laugh.
“You’re too much,” I said, setting my wineglass down, my thoughts turning into a hazy and lusty mess. I kept trying to remind myself that Noah was just a friend, but that was becoming increasingly hard to believe when nothing about this felt “friendly.” There was a much more thunderous undercurrent that pounded against the boundaries of friendship.
It was an undercurrent that carried me forward.
My body moved on autopilot, as if a horny little green man had landed inside the folds of my brain and taken control of things himself. I closed my eyes, leaned in, lifted an arm over Noah’s shoulders, took a breath, felt his on me.
I pulled him in, felt him melt against me.
Our lips met. What followed was a kiss that unraveled reality. A kiss so strong it was responsible for the Big Bang part dos, creating entire galaxies between our skin, a kiss that made me feel drunk and high and blissed-out all at once. It was warm and soft at first, tender, the both of us exploring this new land with an eagerness that was barely able to be contained.
And then it wasn’t. Tongues whipped together, teeth nipped at lips, the sweet taste of wine and man swirled together, same as the stubble from our five-o’clock shadows. My skin scratched, my body thrummed. Heat expanded in me as if a star had been dropped in the very center of my chest. It took everything I had in me to not throw a leg on him and straddle him down into the couch, showing him just how wild this kiss drove me, how hard it made me.