Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73174 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73174 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
My heart squeezed a little in my chest. I’d never seen Storm look quite like this. So innocent and adorable again, sleeping soundly. I moved to set down the tray of hot chocolate on the credenza at the edge of my room, picking up the small teacup full of my own spiked hot chocolate.
I was still just wearing a towel slung around my waist. I sipped the whiskey and chocolate near the windows in my room.
I wanted to get in bed next to him.
I wanted it so badly it physically hurt—an ache in my chest that was far stronger than it should have been.
But I knew what that would do to me. How easily I might associate sleeping close to him with starting to feel some sort of attachment to him. And nothing set off alarm bells in my head like that did.
I finished my small teacup of hot chocolate, went to brush my teeth and toss on a pair of shorts, and turned off the lamp at the side of my bed.
And then I quietly headed downstairs and tucked under a soft blanket on my couch, drifting to sleep alone with the window shades open toward the back yard, watching the snow start to cover the grass.
16
STORM
I woke up colder than usual, not under the covers.
It was dark. For a moment I was confused, because my bed felt way nicer than usual, and it kind of smelled like Emmett, which already had my cock thickening a little, because his scent could do that to me in an instant.
I blinked my eyes open a little and remembered everything in little pieces.
It smelled like him because I wasn’t at home. I was in his bed.
I opened my eyes fully and turned over in bed to see it was empty next to me. “Oh, fuck no,” I muttered, a flash of disappointment flooding through me.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and got up, padding across the room and toward the hall. I poked my head into a spare bedroom, but didn’t see Emmett in there. I headed down the stairs, the whole house lit only by the reflected light coming in through the windows.
When I got downstairs I saw through the tall back windows that the snow must have been steadily falling for a few hours. The grass, plants, and trees were blanketed in a thin layer of white, and even I had to admit that it was beautiful.
Like being in a snowglobe.
I walked over toward the couch and finally saw Emmett there, lying back and covered in one of his fuzzy blankets that looked insanely comfortable but probably had cost hundreds of bucks.
I sat down on the edge of the couch right beside him, leaning close.
He hummed, waking up and blinking up at me.
“You look like an angel right now,” I said, marveling at how beautiful he looked in the low light. “And I’m going to smack you in your fucking pretty face.”
“Storm,” he murmured. “What time is it? It’s still dark out.”
“Don’t know. Don’t care,” I said. “What happened to my whiskey hot chocolate you promised? And your cock?”
He sucked in a breath of air, sitting up a little on the couch. “You fell asleep. Not my fault.”
I swallowed past a sudden tightness in my throat, shifting on the couch. “If you don’t want me, you can just say it, Emmett.”
My words surprised me as much as they seemed to surprise him. He furrowed his brow.
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like?” I asked. “Quit letting me down easy, if that’s what you’re doing.”
I was speaking softly but a flash of anger moved through my body.
“What do you expect will happen?” he asked, a sudden fire in his voice. “We fuck, it feels good, then what?”
“Then whatever the hell we want,” I said. “Then we fuck again. And again. And I show up on your doorstep and bother you because I crave your cock and your scent and your fucking smile like I’m addicted to it.”
Emmett looked like he was a nervous, pretty deer in headlights.
He really did have a fear that getting intimate with me would somehow end up with him getting hurt.
But I’d been hurt in the past, too.
I knew what it was like to have broken trust. I knew it all too well.
In a moment, my attitude did a 180, shifting from confusion to understanding in one fell swoop. At first I had wondered if it was a rejection—of me, of everything I was, and everything I represented. But in reality, I didn’t think Emmett wasn’t rejecting me. He wasn’t saying I didn’t matter, like I was always so afraid of.
He was scared.
“Emmett,” I said softly.
“I want to try,” he breathed. “I want you more than you could even know.”
I hummed low, affection flooding me and making my cock start to harden again. I understood now.