Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68509 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68509 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“You were… sleeping,” Wick said, making me glance over. Just in time to see him slip his fingers into his mouth, tasting me.
If I were a blushing woman, I’d have been crimson right then.
Thankfully, I wasn’t. So I could offer him a convincing glower as I crossed my arms.
“Marco stopped to get you a backpack with some supplies,” Wick said, unbothered by my attitude as he reached around the front seat to grab the bag off the passenger seat.
“Hey, stop touching my stuff,” I grumbled, grabbing my duffle from him as he started to rifle through it.
“This is all you packed?” he asked, brows pinching as he kept digging even as I tried to pull it away from him.
“I was supposed to be chasing a skip. In the States. Where there are stores around for anything I might need, not stranded on an island or trekking through the rainforest. Maybe if someone had told me we were hitting up a town, I could have stopped to stock up.”
“Who are you kidding? You would have spent the whole time trying to track down a cup of coffee.”
“And you should have allowed me to. You would be much more tolerable if I were caffeinated.”
To that, Wick’s lips twitched, and I didn’t like the sparkle in his eyes.
“Yeah, because clearly sleep doesn’t fix your mood.”
“Well, maybe it wasn’t very good sleep.”
It was great ‘sleep,’ and we both knew it. But I’d be damned if I admitted it out loud.
I needed to keep a wall up between us.
Partly because he was my skip. But there was also the whole lying-to-me thing. And, most egregious of all, his one-man mission to keep me uncaffeinated.
“Whatever you need to tell yourself, duchess. Pack your backpack.”
I hated being ordered around.
Seeming to sense that, Wick shot me a cocky little smirk.
“Or I will do it for you. Do you really want me rifling through your bras and panties? Have any other purple get-ups in there?”
I wanted to hate that he knew what my one pretty bra looked like. But I felt another little sizzle of desire despite myself.
“Worry about your own bag,” I suggested, shoving things into my new backpack all willy-nilly. What’d it matter if my clothes were wrinkled if Wick was going to be the only person to see them? And, of course, Marco. But I’d still yet to hear the man utter a single word, so I imagined he wouldn’t have much to say about my clothes either.
Luckily, my duffle wasn’t as pathetic as it had been when I’d landed in Ecuador, thanks to raiding his drawers back at the house. But it definitely didn’t have secret first aid kits or, I imagined, a compass or whatever else people might need deep in the jungle.
But if we were only going to be in the rainforest for a day or so, I couldn’t imagine I would need much.
“What are we doing for food?” I asked an hour or so later, after stubbornly looking out the side window to avoid talking to Wick.
“You can’t be hungry already.”
I was. But he didn’t have to know that. What can I say? I had a very healthy appetite. And was usually just active enough to keep that from packing on the pounds.
“Did you pack protein bars for later?”
“We won’t starve.”
That didn’t exactly sound promising but Wick didn’t seem any more interested in talking to me than I was to him right then.
So we sat in mutually stubborn silence for the rest of the drive.
I dozed on and off.
Then very, very off.
Until Wick’s voice barked at me.
“Get up, duchess. Or we’re leaving you here.”
I’m pretty sure I growled at him.
And the jerk had the audacity to laugh at that.
It was going to be a real joy to haul him in, cuffed, and shove him at the cops.
But first, I had to get through the damn jungle with him.
CHAPTER TEN
Wick
Marco was well ahead of us as we entered the jungle. I took up the rear because Violet was clearly not adept at any sort of hiking or exploring, and I wanted to be able to grab her if she lost her footing or got in some critter’s path.
Of course, it also meant that I got a great view of her round ass the whole way too. Which wasn’t helping the whole ‘I want to pull her behind a tree and fuck her senseless’ thing I was dealing with. Or the fact that I’d been half-hard for her since I’d seen her walking out of the water off Isla Perdita, the water cascading down her body.
She was a gorgeous mix of fit and soft. She had a killer rack, a great ass, and round hips, but she also had strong, shapely leg muscles, toned arms, and the tiniest hint of abdominal muscles. Which, given how much the woman could sock away, was extra impressive.