Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 28386 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 142(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28386 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 142(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
There’s something very appealing about his black and white way of thinking, but I’m not quite ready to embrace it myself. “It’s just that I’m usually a very rational person. I don’t know how to reconcile what’s happening. I always thought the story my grandmother told me was a legend, but turns out…it’s not? Like, you’re an actual time traveler. You aren’t supposed to be here. I know you had science fiction novels in the forties, right? This kind of thing has historical repercussions. What are we going to do about this? We broke the calendar.”
“I don’t know what we’re going to do about it,” he sighs, but as he watches me closely, his mouth curves up at one end. “But you’re even cuter when you’re ranting about history and science. You’re kind of a square, aren’t you, sugar?”
“Stop changing the subject.”
“Fine.” He claps his hands together, exhaling, visibly taking a moment to rein in his wayward thoughts. “Can we talk about this while I take a shower, though? I don’t want to get dirt all over your sheets.”
He’s already walking past me, down the hallway toward the bathroom. “Who said you’re going to anywhere near my sheets?”
He throws his head back and laughs.
“And how do you know where the bathroom is?”
Blaste stops with his hand on the doorjamb of the bathroom. “Oh, I didn’t mention that this is my house?” He tips his head toward the door across the hall. “That’s my room.”
My jaw hinges open. “No, that’s my room.” Slowly, something potentially horrible occurs to me. “Wait. Hold up. What’s your last name?”
“Callahan.” He frowns. “Why?”
I slump with relief. “We don’t have any Callahans in our family tree. I know, because it’s in the front of my grandmother’s Bible. I have that thing memorized.” I wave my hands. “Plus, I’m just remembering that her family bought the ranch in the mid-fifties. Never mind.”
“Huh. Wonder why we sold it.” He chews that over for a beat. “Are you satisfied that I’m not your great-grandfather?”
I shoot him a smirk. “It never hurts to be sure.”
Humor twinkles in his eyes as he drums his fingers on the frame. “Guess this is our bedroom now, sugar.” He disappears into the bathroom, calling, “Better hope the bed is as sturdy as I remember.”
Chapter
Four
Blaste
Everything in the bathroom looks fucking weird.
There are outlets with little black and red buttons on them. The shape of the medicine cabinet is sharper, less rounded. The walls are painted white, the tile is gray. The faucet handles are new, shiny, metal. Sharp, sharp, sharp. The bottle of shampoo claims to contain Argan oil. What the hell is that and is it really necessary?
When I realize my pulse is racing, I take a long, hard breath to calm down and twist the shower handle, starting the alarmingly pressurized spray of water. I don’t want Shiloh to know that I’m nervous. That I feel like I’m locked in a bizarre dream where everything is familiar and totally unfamiliar at the same time. She’s my only anchor, although that’s only one of the million reasons I can’t stop touching her. She’s also soft and gorgeous and spirited and smart. And mine. There’s no forgetting that. Every jagged pump of my heart tells me so.
And if I’m going to succeed with her, she needs to have confidence in me as a man, right? She can’t know my stomach is in a knot, wondering if I’ll ever see my family again. Are they all…dead? My father was born in this house. If he’s not here anymore, he must be gone. Same with my mother. I…just saw them this morning. Young, tending to the horses. It’s too overwhelming to imagine them all gone. To come to grips with the fact that I’ve blinked and seventy-four years have passed. It shouldn’t be possible, but here I am.
This cannonball-sized need and affection and connection inside of me for Shiloh brought me here and it’s where I want to lose myself, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m a man. She needs to know I’m strong. Dependable. Unshakeable. Men don’t show fear or weakness.
“Are you okay in there?” Her sweet voice carries over the shower spray. “I’m leaving a towel on the sink.”
“Stay.” I cringe at the note of desperation in my voice, grateful she can’t see me through the shower curtain. “I mean, we might as well talk this whole thing out while I clean up, right?”
A short pause. “Right.”
Relieved to not be alone, I grab the soap and start lathering, scrubbing my chest, underarms and stomach, wincing while I clean my cock and balls, since I’m still considerably stiff. I might be stiff for the rest of my life now that I know what her tush looks like wiggling around on my lap. Jesus Christ. She didn’t even know she was doing it. Can’t even imagine what she’ll be like once she’s trying to make me come. I swallow a groan. “What is this story your grandmother told you, sugar?”