Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
"Where to next, darling?" Fenway asked, arm dropping across my shoulders, his other waving wide. "The airport is your oyster."
"I think we need coffee," I decided. "And then probably to get back to the plane. It's been hours, hasn't it?"
My eyes certainly thought it had been. I was exhausted. I didn't even know what time it was. All I knew was I was claiming that bed when I got back on that plane.
"It would be more fun to be impractical," he suggested.
"If we don't ever want to make it to Bali," I reminded him. "Did you happen to see the swimsuit I bought for Bali?" I asked, lips curving up, slow and sultry, waiting for the melting thing I knew his eyes would do.
"I did not. Is it very cruel?" he added, smirking.
"Positively torturous," I told him, feeling a strange little giddy sensation inside when he threw his head back and groaned.
"And here I am, a glutton for punishment. Fine, let's go to Bali," he agreed, moving away.
"Um, Fenway?" I called as he kept walking, either expecting me to follow, or completely unaware that I wasn't at his side.
At that, he turned on his heel, head angled to the side.
"Yes?"
"Coffee," I reminded him.
"Right. Yes. Coffee. I would have remembered eventually."
"When?" I asked, rolling my eyes. "When we were halfway to Bali?"
"Don't be silly. We're already halfway to Bali. Oh, that's a new exhibit," he said, already heading in that direction, a man who was clearly used to the whole world standing still for him.
"You're like a child at an amusement park," I informed him, grabbing his lapel, pulling him along with me.
I should have been annoyed.
Normally, I would be.
It was frustrating when people refused to behave like adults.
Nobody liked a man-child.
Yet as I dragged him through the airport, seeing the goofy grin on his face while I did it, I felt my own lips curving upward, his enthusiasm for life—frivolity and all—was proving infectious.
That was a problem.
But one I told myself that I would think about later.
Then promptly forgot to do so as we got coffee, as we made our way back to the jet, as we boarded, settled in, took off.
I didn't even think about it when I moved off to the bedroom, pulling the pocket door, sealing myself in.
Alone.
But I did not wake up alone.
"Fenway!" I snapped, sensing the presence beside me.
"Darling, shh. I'm trying to sleep here," he informed me, voice groggy, yet somehow playful at the same time.
"Yes, well, that is the problem, isn't it?" I asked, pushing myself upward, slow blinking at the pillows lined between us. "Did you build a pillow wall between us?"
"I did. I couldn't exactly have you trying to have your way with me when I was asleep, now could I?" he asked, giving me a sleepy grin that was a little too intimate, a little too tempting. "I want to be wide awake when you molest me."
A choked laugh escaped me at that as I reached up to push my wild hair out of my face. "Don't worry, Fenway. Your body is safe from me," I told him, lips curving up. "What time is it?"
"Late. Early. Not time to get up yet," he told me.
"How long have I been asleep?"
"Two hours, give or take."
"How long have you been asleep?"
"An hour and forty minutes. Give or take," he told me smirking lazily as I settled back down, the siren's call of my pillow proving impossible to ignore.
"You're such a creeper," I told him, rolling onto my side. Facing him. But we weren't going to think about why that was.
He rolled to face me as well, bridging the pillow wall, pulling the top one to position under his head.
"What are you doing?"
"Looking at you."
"Well... don't," I demanded, feeling a completely ridiculous—and unfamiliar—surge of insecurity overtake me.
"You're looking at me too."
"You're in my line of vision," I told him. "There. Happy?" I said, closing my eyes.
I wasn't prepared for the soft glide of his fingertip down the side of my face. So unprepared, in fact, that a shiver worked its way through me. But, thankfully, only on the inside.
My eyes shot open.
"Fenway," I started, hearing a strange thickness to my own voice.
"You're pretty when you sleep. Less guarded," he added.
See now.
I hated being called pretty.
I hated every single variation of it.
That was my 'damage,' as Alvy called it. That was my sore spot. That was the place that, when you touched, I hissed and spit and clawed.
I had never felt flattered or tingly or whatever else normal people felt when someone else thought they were attractive.
Why, then, was there a skittering sensation in my belly?
I didn't want to analyze that.
"Think of me like that weird jacks art installment at the airport," I told him, referencing the one he'd tried to reach out to, only to be scolded by a nearby security guard in Arabic. "You can look, but don't touch," I told him, flipping to my other side, giving him my back.