Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 154595 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154595 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Maeve: Thanks for the flowers.
He frowned. Okay, that was not what he’d been expecting.
And what flowers?
Who the fuck was sending her flowers?
Anger filled him and he had to take a moment to calm himself. She wasn’t his. Although she better not be fucking someone else while she was fucking him. That was not their agreement.
Gray: What flowers?
He waited for what seemed like forever for her to reply. Finally, his phone buzzed.
Maeve: Sorry. Got it wrong.
Nope. No. Who sent them?
Gray: Someone sent you flowers? Who?
Obviously, she doesn’t know who, you shithead. Or she wouldn’t have texted you.
Unless she just thought it was him and hadn’t read the card. Fuck, now he was feeling guilty about not sending her flowers. But why would he?
Booty. Call.
Oh, who you kidding, asshole? You can’t stop thinking about her.
Maeve: I don’t know. No card. Sorry, that was stupid of me for assuming they were from you.
Crap. Fuck.
Yeah, now he was feeling like crap. He could practically feel her embarrassment coming down the phone.
Gray: No card?
Maeve: No. They’re probably not even for me. They were likely put outside the wrong door. I feel stupid.
Gray frowned. He didn’t like that. She shouldn’t feel stupid.
Gray: Don’t be starting that, girl. You aren’t stupid.
Maeve: Just because you say something doesn’t make it true.
Pfft. What little she knew.
Gray: Does if I say it does.
Maeve: Does your neck ever get tired?
Gray: Huh?
Maeve: Carrying around that giant head.
Gray: Girl.
Maeve: Sorry for bothering you.
He didn’t like that. At all. But he didn’t know what to say to her. He also didn’t like the idea of someone sending her flowers. But maybe she was right and they were for someone else. Five minutes later, he sent her back a text.
Gray: You’re never a bother.
15
Maeve stared down at Gray’s last text for about the hundredth time. It was Thursday afternoon, and she was on the bus, heading home.
She didn’t know what to make of his text.
Did he really mean that? That she wasn’t a bother? Because she was fairly certain that wasn’t true.
She was sure she was a bother.
Maybe he just had to say that. Perhaps he felt bad because she’d made such a fool of herself yesterday when she’d assumed those flowers were from him.
She couldn’t believe she’d thought that he had sent her flowers. Of course they weren’t for her. No one had ever sent her flowers.
The bus reached her stop and she got off, shivering as a cold breeze went right through her clothes. She hadn’t bothered with a jacket.
She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep warm as she walked toward her building. She was about three blocks away because she’d timed it poorly. She’d missed the bus she’d planned on taking, so it was later than she would have liked.
Why couldn’t she get simple things like that right?
Stupid brain.
A strange feeling moved through her. Was . . . was someone watching her? She glanced around but couldn’t see anything. She felt extra jumpy at the moment, and she didn’t know why. Maybe it was the flowers.
It was likely they’d been meant for someone else.
But what if they hadn’t been? What if someone had purposely sent them to her?
Don’t be stupid, Maeve.
Why would someone send you flowers . . . with one thorn on each stem?
Ridiculous.
But that feeling of being watched, of being hunted, just wouldn’t go away, and by the time she reached her building she was a nervous wreck. Her tummy felt ill and she was jittery.
Rushing inside, she headed up the stairs. It didn’t matter that she had her knife on her. She still felt like prey. As though at any moment, someone was going to jump out of the shadows and grab her.
Every noise felt menacing. Like a threat.
She kept her head down as she reached her corridor, searching through her bag for her keys.
She just had to get into her room, into her bed, and under the covers.
Then she’d feel better.
That would keep the monsters away. Everyone knew that as long as you were hidden under your blankets the monsters couldn’t find you.
“Maeve.” A hand reached out and touched her shoulder. She screamed and turned, reaching into her pocket for the knife.
“Maeve! Maeve, it’s me!”
She turned, knife in hand, jabbing it at him. “Touch me and I’ll stab you.”
The man didn’t move.
And that’s when awareness settled in. It wasn’t a stranger trying to attack her.
This was Gray.
She breathed in heavily, letting it out slowly. This was Gray. She was fine. She’d just acted like a lunatic but she was fine.
Was he the one who’d been watching her?
Idiot.
“Girl, give me the knife.”
Huh?
Oh. Crap. She looked down at her hand. Where she had her knife precariously close to his cock.
Whoa. That could have been a disaster.
“Shoot. Sorry. That could have been very bad. I don’t want to cut up my second favorite part of you.”