Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 61872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Once I see him, I can’t look away. He’s not swimming, but walking in the shallows. Water streams off his sculpted shoulders, lapping lovingly at his massive pectoral muscles.
A few more steps towards the shore, and water flows away from his diamond-hard abs, cut and sculpted with the precision of a jeweler. He’s got the height and frame of a bodybuilder, but something about the hollows under his high cheekbones and the lean sinew of his arms and chest tells me he is thirty to forty pounds underweight.
My God. I've been in Milan around some of the hottest male models in the world, and they look like Play-Doh figurines next to this guy. Dark brows. Long, silky lashes, thick black hair. His wild beard is a little out of control, but I don't mind. How would it feel between my legs?
The man turns, and the sunlight catches his eyes. They’re a stunning amber color. Then they fall on me and heat to molten gold.
“Oh excuse me,” I step back. “I didn't mean to intrude.”
The man stares at me and makes a noise between a grumble and a growl, and the earth moves in an answering rumble. I lurch as the ground shakes.
Are we having an earthquake? Or did the earth move when our eyes met? Goosebumps break out over my body. The man is still staring at me, and I can't look away.
He's coming up out of the pool. Water streams off his perfect body, running in rivulets down his Adonis belt–the cut muscles making a V pointing straight to his groin. If he comes out of the water a little bit further, I'll be able to see his…
Oh yes, there it is. And damn if he's a shower, not a grower.
Except actually... He is a grower. Because the longer I stare at his cock, the bigger it gets.
“Holy hell,” I mutter. This wild man in the wilderness with a beard like John the Baptist is making me hotter and wetter between my legs than I've ever been. Maybe I’m just in a dry spell. In Milan, I was never tempted. The male models were beautiful, but they were also coke-headed man whores. This guy could outshine them all–and he’s lighting my fire in a way that I never expected.
The man opens his mouth and says something in a thick accent my brain tries and fails to decipher.
“Che cosa?” What? I ask in Italian. I frantically try to remember my meager French or Spanish, or any language really. The musical sound is nothing like the Italian I learned in the city. Maybe it’s a local dialect?
The man speaks again, another long string of beautiful syllables rolling from his mouth like poetry. His voice is deep and rich.
Golden light flashes around his head and disappears. I blink. This guy doesn’t have an aura. Usually I see auras like a subtle glow around a person and sometimes even the stuff they own. I pick up on their emotional energy too–at the fashion shows the cacophony of feelings could make me nauseous.
But this stranger’s energy is not intrusive. His aura is clear–or hiding. His emotional presence is a void or so subtle it blends seamlessly with my energy. I’ve never felt anything like it.
It makes him strangely enticing. Too bad everything else about him screams Psycho!
Around him, the lake bubbles, steam rising in a curtain between us.
Is the water boiling around him?
The ground moves and rumbles again. It must be an earthquake.
I step back and lick my lips so I can speak. “I probably should be going…”
The man stalks forward. He's speaking the same phrase over and over again.
I back away. Not because I'm getting full-on psychopath vibes, not because he looks like he’s going to murder me and leave my body on the side of the mountain, but because he's looking at me like he's a dying man, and I'm his savior.
He holds out a large, bronzed hand. Even from a distance, I sense the heat coming off his palm as if he has hot coals under his skin.
But that’s crazy.
The earth shakes, and I almost lose my balance. My pack and jacket are a few feet away, but I’ve already backed up to the tree line. Overhead, the trunks and branches creak.
On the peak above the lake, the limestone cracks. Rocks the size of my backpack tumble down in dusty streams. Some sort of avalanche is happening, and I should be running for my life.
Instead, I stare back at the gorgeous bronze god stepping out of the pool. His tone has changed, his voice becoming less musical and more guttural. A growl that echoes around the lake and seems to trigger more falling rocks.
A tree branch whips my face and breaks our eye contact, and it’s like weights have fallen off my feet. I turn and scramble down the trail.