Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
And my freaking god, this is not pulling away. This is the exact opposite. I have never felt like this in my life, where I meet someone who knows so much of my crap and doesn’t run, someone who is a perfect fit in my life. And I know this might be tongue-in-cheek humor or a bad pun because I’m currently still inside her and enjoying the aftershocks of her orgasm, but she feels like a perfect fit.
After it’s over, Darby doesn’t roll away. She lies flat on top of me, covering me with her much smaller frame like she wants to protect me. Like she doesn’t want to let me go. Ever.
I know real life is waiting—real life with complications about work and fake marriages and all the other crap that is normally in my head or going on because of the pain in my head. But right now, there’s only silence and the sounds from outside. Nice nature sounds—frogs and crickets and stuff. And Darby’s breathing in my ear.
Not for the likes of you. You’re about as joyful as a dead fish left to rot in the hot sun for three days.
For once, I ignore the voice. It doesn’t help that, right as I had the thought, Darby’s lips find mine, and she kisses me hard, banishing the bullshit from my brain and replacing it with her soft sweetness instead.
16
DARBY
In the morning, I make sure Leon has a pot of coffee waiting for him when he wakes up. We’re back on a semi-normal schedule. At least, I am. I woke up at eight with the beginnings of an idea and couldn’t go back to sleep. I felt like I was plotting out there while he slept in the bedroom directly behind the living room. Plotting or not, I still made the call. Now I have to fess up to what I did.
It would be easier if Leon didn’t emerge from the bedroom wearing only his boxers—I guess he always wears those—his ridiculously chiseled abs, a tousled head of dark hair, and a rare smile.
It sucks that I’m going to have to erase that smile. I want to save it, keep it, and cherish it forever in my memory bank of Leon’s Lovely Smiles.
“I made coffee.” I point at the pot, just in case it wasn’t obvious. “Do you want eggs? Bacon? A grilled cheese?”
He’s still half asleep. He looks so damn good that I want to bite him on the shoulder, lick his abs, strip his boxers off, and—stop. Confessions first.
My lady bits are still throbbing from last night. We may or may not—emphasis on the may—have gone a couple more rounds after the first time before falling into a sated sleep. That queen-sized bed has seen quite a bit of debauchery in the past twenty-four hours.
“I—you don’t have to make me anything. Coffee is fine for now.” He gets it himself, and I let him because I know how he feels about me doing things for him. Still, when he’s sitting at the table, I find myself drifting to him. I set my hands on his shoulders and start to rub his muscles and soft, soft skin. “Oh. Wow.” He actually groans that out.
He turns and looks over his shoulder at me, and it’s like looking at a different man. This is Leon when he’s unguarded, not in pain, and happy. Right now, his eyes are less like a rainstorm and more like a sunrise. Before, he would have literally given me every cent he had to leave him to die in what he saw as his humiliation, but now he’s just…happy.
“Darby,” he groans. “What are you doing to me? You’re turning me into this person I don’t know. Someone who sits on beaches and talks about their feelings and emotions.”
I roll my eyes. “Right. Because that’s the worst thing in the world.” I massage his shoulders, working my fingertips into his hot skin. I’d like to work my tongue there too, but I refrain. I know I have to confess what I’ve done, and it makes me so nervous that I feel sick. “Leon?”
He turns his head back around, his coffee curling steamy clouds in front of him. “Hmm?”
“You’re going to be okay. You are. But you need to take care of yourself. Will you let me help you do that?”
I can feel him tense under my hands, and his muscles literally bunch up. Man, no wonder they say stress is bad for you. I can feel what it just did to him right now. “I’m quite capable of looking after myself.”
I run my hand down his arm until I reach his hand. It’s his right, the one without the burn scars, and I curl my hand over his palm, lacing our fingers together before I walk around the table to look him in the eye. “I know you’re capable. I know that, but I…I still…I made a few calls this morning. My dad sent me a link, and it was on my phone when I woke up. It’s for a place that does research on lots of different things. They’re a facility that has doctors and psychologists working together. They take in a lot of patients who have chronic pain. They’re also one of the leading facilities on concussion research, and they treat a lot of athletes.”