Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
“Good answer.” He pauses and yawns into my hair. “You’re going to make me get up, aren’t you?”
“Mm-hmm,” I mumble into his chest, still burrowed in and not moving at all. “Now I have to go home and get dressed and hope Grandpa doesn’t notice I look like I’ve been attacked by vampire bats.”
“I’ll lend you a jacket to cover up.” He sounds too smug as he kisses my jaw. “Shit. In what world am I lucky enough to land a girl with a vampire kink?”
“I don’t have a vampire kink!” I shove at his chest. “I just have a very active imagination, thank you very much. And you just happen to tick a few of my boxes.”
“A few?” He stares at me with his eyes narrowed. “So, you’re telling me you wouldn’t like me if I wasn’t an albino fuck with a twisted appetite?”
He says it lightly, teasingly, but I wonder how much he’s really asking.
If he really thinks I only want him as this unicorn thing who fits my fantasy, this rare freak who turns my crank and nothing else.
I pull back enough to really look at him.
He’s perfection incarnate in the morning light.
Not that I’d ever tell him that when he’d just start scowling, killing that soft, sleepy expression.
He’s described himself as a canvas for his father’s violence in the past, but I don’t think he realizes his skin can hold so many other colors.
Like the dawn light, casting gold and pink and even a little violet into his hair, his skin, his eyes, until he’s not so pale at all.
He’s wearing the morning, my very own fallen angel with an aura too beautiful for life.
I smile, touching my fingertips to his lips.
“Dye your hair black,” I say. “Get a spray tan. File your teeth down. Gain fifty pounds. Micah, I won’t care. It’s not about how you look. It’s about how you make me feel. And as far as the pain thing…” My smile widens. “I liked you before I even knew I liked it or knew you liked doing those kinds of things. So, yeah. Sorry, you’re stuck with me.”
I’m not sorry at all.
There’s a ghost of last night’s conversation there, too. That question of what we are, haunting us in every glance.
I can see it in his eyes, wondering if I’ll push him again after he diverted me last night.
I don’t have the heart for that right now.
So when he just smiles and kisses my forehead, I lean into him and let it go.
“I don’t think I’ll be dolling myself up like an extra from Jersey Shore anytime soon,” he says. Then he nudges my hip. “C’mon. You can shower here so you don’t have to go home a mess.”
Oh, he definitely sounds smug.
I almost hate him for how easy it is to flex his lithe body and roll out of bed when I know I’ll be limping the instant I stand up.
I watch him in pure disgust, eyeing him as he pads toward the bathroom, before I sit up with the sheets clutched against my chest.
I look at Rolf and snort.
“Can you believe your dad?”
The dog cocks his head at me, his ears up.
“Murf?” Rolf answers.
I snort again.
“Murf, indeed.”
Even with work looming over our heads, it’s an easy morning.
Separate showers this time—or else I won’t be walking out of here under my own power—before he puts his uniform on and I shrug into the summery pink dress he ripped off of me last night.
I feed Rolf and give him a good brushing while Micah whips together coffee and breakfast. It’s so smooth it’s hard to believe we’ve fallen into this thing together so fast, but I can’t complain.
It makes me feel like I’m really a part of Micah’s life.
Not just a tourist, passing through his long, dark night.
Yet that wall remains, like I’m reaching for him through impenetrable glass. And that feeling hangs over me as he drops me off outside the shop with a new problem.
I can feel Grandpa watching from the window, but that doesn’t stop Micah from kissing me before leaning over to unlock the passenger door.
Then that brazen jerk actually waves at Grandpa.
Oh my God.
“Are you kidding?” Spluttering, I shove his arm and duck out of the car.
The bell jingling above the shop door doesn’t even fully stop before Grandpa looks up from pretending to check the price tag on a hand-carved rocking chair in the front window and beams at me brightly.
“So things must be going well with Mr. Ainsley?” His eyes glitter with mischief. “I’m starting to get lonely, eating breakfast all by myself.”
Ouch, nice reality check.
Guilt swamps me as I kiss his wrinkled cheek.
What if something happened while I was out enjoying myself? Sure, he has Mrs. Brodsky checking and bringing him a few meals, but still.