Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80014 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80014 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
My reaction time was painfully slow. By the time I responded, he’d already reversed direction, smiled at me, and began to stroll into the shop. I grabbed his elbow and whispered, “Don’t fuck with me, Jack.”
He paused and turned to me, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “What’re you going to do Daddy, spank me?”
He’d started out the evening contrite but had woken up spicy. I really didn’t have the energy to deal with Spicy Jack right now though, so I growled, “There’s plenty of room in the trunk and another six hours of drive time ahead of us. Do you really feel like pressing your luck?”
That was definitely the wrong thing to say, and I instantly regretted it. He straightened his posture and glared at me. “I was just playing,” he said. “You don’t have to be a dick.”
I let go of his arm and muttered, “Look, I’m sorry.” Jesus, was I actually apologizing? “It’s been a long fucking night, and it’s only going to get longer.”
His expression softened, and he dipped his chin. Then he looked up at me through his thick lashes and asked, “You wouldn’t really put me in the trunk, would you?”
“Of course not.” I grinned a little and added, “How would I even get you in there? It’d be like trying to get a cat into a tub of water. You’d probably bite me.”
That brought out his smile. “I’d definitely bite you. Now come on, I need to pee.” With that, he turned and went into the convenience store.
After we used the facilities, I started to pour myself a cup of coffee. “You took all my money,” Jack said, “so how am I supposed to buy something?”
“I’ll give it back later. For now, get anything you want. It’s on me.”
“Anything?”
When I nodded, he used both arms to scoop up every bag of chips from one of the shelves. Then he watched me to see what I’d do. Instead of calling him on being ridiculous, I asked, “Hungry?”
“I’m in survival mode,” he informed me. “I’ve been taken hostage, and who knows if my captor will remember to feed me? You strike me as the kind of man who can’t even keep a goldfish alive.”
“Calling yourself a hostage is kind of dramatic.”
“Well, how would you describe this situation?”
“Keeping an eye on you until I get my watch back.”
“I’m right about the goldfish though, aren’t I?”
“No comment.” I changed the subject with, “Would you like a cup of coffee? I’ll make you one, since your hands are full.”
“Yes please, with obscene amounts of cream and sugar.”
I doctored up his coffee with three times the amount of cream and sugar I’d consider reasonable and asked him, “Is that obscene enough for you?”
“It’ll do.”
On the way to the register, he grabbed a pack of snack cakes—awkwardly, since his arms were totally loaded up with chips. Then he picked up a bag of peanuts in the shell, which I plucked out of his hand. He frowned as he reminded me, “You said I could have anything I wanted.”
I replaced it with a bag of shelled peanuts and said, “You can have these. What are you, a circus elephant? It’s bad enough you’ll be eating in my car. I’m not letting you get shells all over it, too.”
“Fine.”
All of this felt like a test, and I wasn’t sure if I passed.
Jack stood by patiently while the cashier rang up our items. I half-expected him to make a comment about being kidnapped, but instead he just raised a brow when I glanced at him.
Once we were back in the car, he settled in with the blanket on his lap and took a sip of coffee. Then he turned to me and asked, “Will you be chaining me up again like a common criminal?”
“You know you literally are a criminal, right?”
“As are you.”
“I’m aware. And no, I’m not going to cuff you to the door unless you give me a reason to.”
He maintained a pretty successful poker face, but I saw a look of relief in his eyes. “Good, because that was absurd. What did you think I was going to do, leap from a car barreling down the interstate at eighty miles an hour? I’d wreck my suit. I’m already down one from when I landed in those murder bushes beneath your balcony.”
“Yeah, those hurt like hell when I went to chase you. Thank you for running away like that, by the way.”
“I had to. You were about to shoot me.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“You pointed a gun at me!”
“It wasn’t loaded.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“Just FYI, when a normal person finds themselves in that situation, they put their hands up and surrender,” I told him. “Not you, though.”
“I was afraid of you, and my fight or flight response kicked in. Obviously, I went with flight.”