Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 107710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Because his dick had no idea how to act.
He got his answer when she wrinkled her nose. “God, I can smell you from here.”
Definitely feeling better.
With a humorless laugh, he swiped up the wrench from the ground. “This is what manual labor looks like, Natalie. Have you ever seen it in real life or just in movies?”
Her withering sigh filled the barn. “I grew up on a winery, moron. I know what manual labor looks like.”
“Nope. You know what it looks like when other people are doing it.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but snapped it shut just as quickly, avoiding his gaze. Immediately he wished to have it back. Why did he continue to fall into this trap with her? Why did they fight every time they were in the same room? Did she steer them into disagreements or did he continually put his foot in his mouth where she was concerned? “I came to discuss the . . . exchange of vows,” she said, presenting him with an unconcerned smile, even though her eyes were vulnerable in a way that made his gullet pinch together. God save him from his kaleidoscopic woman. “Unless you slept on it last night and decided to back out.”
“I’m not backing out.” That long breath she let out made him want to shake her. Or kiss her. Or something. “So we’re doing notebook-level planning, huh?”
“Guess you have to put a shirt on. Unless you’ve ripped them all down the middle pretending to be the Hulk in the mirror.”
“As opposed to asking my mirror if I’m the fairest one of all like you do, oh evil one?”
“Beware of poison apples once we’re married. I could inherit this place and actually make some decent wine.”
“You mean you could hire other people to do it?”
“Better than stubbornly trying to do it alone without any expertise whatsoever.”
“Do you think you can do better, princess? Because as far as I can tell, you have nothing to do with the actual producing or bottling of your family’s wine. Only the drinking of it.”
The shutters went down.
She went from animated to robotic in one second flat.
And his brain, the upstairs one, started to recall the other times he’d poked fun at Natalie for her penchant to get tipsy on a frequent basis. Had she reacted the same way those other times? Yeah . . . August suspected maybe she had, but it was hard to tell when they were swinging from one barb to the next like monkeys on vines.
“Do you want me to stop needling you about the drinking?” he asked, approaching her from the other side of the barn. “I can.”
She flipped open the notebook to the first page and pretended to make a note, even though he could see the cap was still on her pen. “It hardly matters. Everything you say to me goes in one ear and out the other.”
“No, the drinking thing bothers you.”
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”
“Because I’ll stop.”
“We’re setting parameters now for insulting each other?”
“Yeah. Looks like it. The goal isn’t to hurt your feelings.”
That surprised her. And got her attention. Good. “What is the goal?”
“You’re so determined to put me in my place on the peg below you. Maybe I’m just trying to get you down to the same level so we can . . .”
“Have sex? God, you’re so predictable.”
“I was going to say, so we can see eye to eye again.”
“In bed.”
“Among other places.”
Like cuddling on trains. Not that he could say that out loud without her crucifying him.
He could, however, get this one problem solved, couldn’t he? This woman shouldn’t have to put up her guard around him. It bothered him a great deal that she did. He liked her sitting in his lap and trusting him a hell of a lot more. “Your mother said something last night about . . . an incident when you were in high school?”
Her muscles braced, as if she didn’t expect him to bring that up and was now preparing to layer on even more armor. Not happening.
“Natalie, I burped ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ by Bon Jovi into a microphone at my high school talent show when I was seventeen. In a wig and tasseled knee socks. I’m not here to pass judgment.”
A gasping laugh snuck out of her. “Last place, I’m assuming?”
“They didn’t really grasp my artistic vision.”
She ran her eyes over him, as if trying to picture the scene, and pressed her lips together to smother a smile. Hesitating. Then with a jerky shoulder roll, she confessed, “I do tend to use alcohol as a coping mechanism. Of course I do. I’m an adult living in this world.” She chewed the inside of her cheek, her expression running the gamut of emotions so quickly, he had to concentrate on keeping up. Damn, she was something. “Back in high school, though, it was more . . . the impetus to act out and get the attention I needed. Julian came by it so easily. Attention for his achievements and his wise way of reasoning through a problem. I didn’t have any of his attributes and I panicked, I guess. I’d started to feel invisible. When I drank a lot and acted reckless, people at least paid attention. They thought I was funny. The party girl.”