Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 71858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
But Trouper was the tallest of the bunch, that was for sure.
“The midget is known as Toot.” Trouper rolled his eyes. “The tall redhead is Kansas.”
“Toot and Kansas?” I asked.
“Toot is actually my call sign. As is Kansas.” Toot hooked his thumb in the redhead’s direction.
I shook my head and looked at Troup.
“Fun,” I teased.
He winked and offered me his elbow.
“Are you going to take that jacket off now that you’re inside?” Kansas asked.
Trouper gave him a droll look.
Apparently, this was an old argument with them.
“Do I ever?” Troup countered.
“It’s either the flight suit or this stupid leather jacket. Even in the summer months,” Kansas informed me. “It’s like that jacket has stupid magical powers or something.”
My lips turned up into a smile.
“I stitched a few things into the jacket liner,” I said, turning my gaze to the two men. “He probably just wears it because he’s obligated to. I told him if he took it off, he would die.”
Kansas burst out laughing.
“He may get hot and take it off, but it never leaves his sight,” Kansas admitted. “There was this one time that some girl I was dating tried to put it on, and you would think that a demon had possessed ol’ State there. He actually raised his voice at her and ordered her to take it off. I had to break up with her.”
“You broke up with her because she didn’t give good head,” Toot corrected him.
“Oh yeah.” Kansas snapped his fingers.
Troup groaned.
“Come on.” Toot gestured. “Our girls are over there at the round booth in the corner. We ordered some appetizers, but I doubt they’ll still be there.”
Troup’s hand found mine and he pulled me into the curve of his arm, leaving our hands connected so that I was holding with my elbow bent to keep the connection.
We weaved our way through the crowded bar. Together we all walked toward the back of the bar where we might actually be heard over the loud music. And that was where I found two very opposite looking girls.
One tall, willowy, and model beautiful. The other small, a bit chunky, and cute as a button.
I had expected Kansas to go to the tall one and Toot to go to the shorter one, but they both utterly surprised me by going to the opposite.
I could barely hold in my surprise.
“Cannel,” Toot said about the tall model. “This is Beckham. Beckham, this is my fiancée, Cannel.”
Cannel waved, a smile on her face.
“This is my wife, Traci.” Kansas tugged on his wife’s curly hair. “Traci, play nice and say hello to Beckham, the master of State’s heart.”
Traci’s eyes went wide, and I could see that the whites of her eyes were very, very white.
“So you’re the one.”
I looked over to Toot’s fiancée. “I’m sorry?”
“We’ve wondered,” she said. “All these months, the guys hanging out, there was never anyone for State. It was weird. Like, the girls would be there, try, and get shut down so fast and hard that it was like a race to see how fast he could reject them. I’ve never seen a man so uninterested, in anyone, before, and now we know why.”
Toot pushed his girl into the booth a little farther. “Scoot all the way around so State can sit next to his girl.”
They all squished even closer together, the two women almost touching, and getting to sit directly across from me.
Trouper pushed me in a little more, but then squeezed in beside me so tightly that I started to scoot over again.
But he stopped me by pressing a hand to my thigh and leaning over to whisper in my ear. “Stay.”
I didn’t dare move.
A, mostly because I didn’t want to.
B, because if I did, I knew that he’d move me right back, and how he’d move me right back just might not be very comfortable for me.
Not in a ‘he’s going to do something to hurt me way’ but in an ‘I’m going to hook my fingers inside of you and leave them there so you can’t move’ kind of way.
Which, now that I thought about it, might not be too bad of an idea…
“Whatever you’re thinking about, stop,” he ordered gruffly in my ear. “Now, do you want a drink?”
I turned my face, and our lips came to within an inch of each other’s.
“I’d love a beer,” I admitted, my breath coming slightly faster than its usual.
My heart rate was up, too.
His eyes flicked downward, and I knew that he’d just taken a look at my breasts.
My nipples were hard.
There was no denying that fact.
When his gaze once again met mine, he grinned like the fuckin’ fool that he was.
“Just a few more hours, honey,” he groaned.
I closed my eyes and felt things inside of me shift.
Son of a bitch, this was bad.
I had how much more time to have to deal with this?