Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 89012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Ashley stands at the foot of the stairs.
I nearly drop the phone.
“Wow,” I say, my jaw hanging open. “I’d love to see what you could do with more time.”
“Same. Quickest shower in the history of showers.”
I walk to her and pick up her hand. She follows my nudge and twirls in a slow circle, allowing me a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of her. Once she stops, her eyes are full of hesitation.
“I take that back,” I say, releasing her. “There’s nothing you could do with more time because I’m not sure I can imagine you, or could handle you, if you were any more beautiful.”
She smacks my chest. Her cheeks are pink as she moves through the room to the kitchen.
“You do look beautiful,” I say, taking in her candy apple-red dress that swishes against the floor. The front scoops down, providing a glimpse of her cleavage, and the back forms a V that shows off her sexy shoulders.
She’s all mine.
She pulls out a bottle of water from the fridge. “Thank you. You cleaned up well yourself. But you did have more than thirty minutes.” She glances at me over her shoulder. “Are you drinking a seltzer?”
“Yeah. It’s awful.”
“I know.” She takes a long drink of water. “We should probably just have James take them tomorrow.”
She puts her water back in the fridge. When she turns back around, our gazes collide.
The air between us crackles—I can almost hear it rippling with energy. Ashley must too because she grins.
“Ready for dinner?” she asks, sensing that I’m weakening.
“After you.”
We move through the house, down past the pool, and through the gate. The soft sand on the other side is warm against our bare feet. Ashley gathers the bottom of her dress as we make our way to the table set up for us. A few other tables are down on the beach, but they’re not close enough to hear conversations.
I pull out Ashley’s chair and then sit across from her.
A black linen covers the table, decorated with a single long-stemmed red rose in the center. A candle flickers on either side of the vase.
“You look very, very handsome,” she says, her voice soft.
She sits across from me with this insane mixture of innocence and sexiness. Her features are delicate and refined. Smooth skin. Slight, slender nose. Cheekbones that hug her eyes. But her body is curved, full—the edges rounded in all the right places.
It’s enough to make me crazy.
I’m going to unwrap her from that dress like a fucking present. Slowly. Methodically. Deliberately.
The low-hanging sun casts an amber glow over the beach. The waves crash gently not too far away. It’s difficult to rectify the pure tranquility of the environment and the chaos raging inside me.
“Here comes dinner,” she says, looking over my shoulder.
A cart appears, and two men dressed in suit jackets deliver an appetizer, salads, and champagne to go along with the iced water they place in front of us. They promise to return with the next course and then disappear once again.
Ashley lifts her water glass and takes a sip. Her red lipstick leaves an imprint on the edge. I try not to stare as I create a list of all the places I want to find that lipstick later.
“You know,” she says, setting her drink back down. “I don’t think I’ve slept that well in a long time.”
“Becca’s guest room uncomfortable?”
She shrugs. “Even before that.” She places her napkin on her lap and picks up her fork. “I’ve always felt the weight of my life at night. The sun goes down, and it somehow removes whatever levity I’ve managed to find, you know?”
I watch her lips wrap around her fork. Fuck.
“It’s because you have fewer distractions,” I say, trying not to be distracted by her mouth. “During the day, you’re busy with work, or solving problems, or just living. And at night, everything slows down, and you just lie there with nothing to block all the thoughts you haven’t processed.” I stab a piece of avocado. “You’ve always had trouble sleeping, haven’t you?”
Ashley nods. “Well, not always. I think it began when I was a teenager and my dad started acting up. I’d go to bed, and my stomach would twist while I waited for him to come home and start a fight with my mom.”
The lines on her face tighten, and my heart breaks for her.
I remember when she was going through that. One night in particular, at a party on the beach, while everyone else drank and danced, Ashley and I were sitting around the fire together, and she opened up to me.
It was one of two times that she’s cried on my shoulder.
It was one of many times that I felt connected to her—drawn to her—in a way that confounded me.
“I’d stay up and listen to Mom cry after they divorced. Then I’d stay up worrying about her or whatever dumb stuff he said to me or … about aliens.” She smiles. “There’s always something to worry about, you know?”