Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
And now I was standing here being a raging ass because I was fucking jealous.
I glanced over the group and opened my mouth to apologize and make good on my offer to buy them drinks. Hell, I’d just buy their entire night. I didn’t understand what the fuck was happening to me.
Tucker’s big paw clapped down on my shoulder. “You need to go.”
“Or what?”
“Or you’re going to regret it like nothing else in your life, I promise you that.”
I perked a brow. “You’re telling me to leave?”
“I am.” I didn’t like the look in his eyes. It was closed off, unreachable. Like a stranger. “Right fucking now.”
My stomach clenched. One second, two, three, we stared at each other. His hard expression didn’t waver.
Shit, I’d really fucked up this time.
I put up my hands in a placating gesture as I pasted on a smile. “Better luck next time, gents. Sorry about that pass, Garrett. You’ll get it next time, I’m sure.” I spun on a heel, flashing a peace sign as I went. If Houston hadn’t been there, I suspected I would’ve been tackled by Ramsey or Garrett. And I supposed I would’ve deserved it, too.
But it was Tucker’s eyes I couldn’t let go of.
My phone chimed the second I exited.
Tucker: The fuck is wrong with you?
Everything, probably. I considered that question as I started down the sidewalk and opened the app to call for another Uber as I walked aimlessly. I needed the air anyway. I wondered what Tucker would say if I explained that I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about those Christmas lights. Or him. That the stupid texts we sent to each other, that lying next to him in bed, made me feel something I’d never felt in my life. How did you write that into a text?
Before I could reply, he messaged me again.
Tucker: Where are you?
Me: Heading home.
I was still trying to figure out how to answer Tucker’s earlier question when a white SUV pulled into the bike lane and the window rolled down. My Uber driver.
I watched my phone the entire ride home, but Tucker didn’t reply, which I supposed meant he was done with me for the night. Possibly longer.
But when the driver pulled up to my house for the second time that night, a shadowed figure stood up from where he’d been sitting on my front porch.
Tucker.
He stepped back into the shadows as the driver’s headlights splashed across him.
“Hey,” I called out, as I got out of the car. “Sorry about earlier—”
Tucker lifted his hand, cutting me off. “Not a goddamn word until we’re inside.” He glanced meaningfully at the Uber driver, so I glanced back at him, too, and waved him off before opening my door.
Tucker followed me inside, and the second I locked the door behind him and whirled around, he was in my face. “Were you trying to out us, showing up like that?”
“No!”
“Are you fucking crazy?”
“Maybe.” I shoved him back an inch to give myself some breathing room. “How the hell did you get here so fast anyway?”
“I have my ways and means.” His lips twisted in a smug smile that only made me more frustrated.
“Were you going to text me back or leave me hanging all night?”
“You mean like you’ve done before?” He stepped into my space again.
“I haven’t,” I ground out. “You need to step the fuck back.”
Tucker didn’t move. “You have, and you will again, because that’s what you do. You want me close but not too close.” A fist wrapped around my heart as he glanced down at his feet, the toes of his shoes a hair’s breadth from mine. “So how’s this right here? You fucking tell me. Too close?”
His flashing gaze met mine, and I swallowed back the instinct to do what I always did, to push him away again, and instead answered with the truth. “Not close enough. And it never will be,” I said and then crashed my mouth into his. The kiss seared through me for long seconds before cool air rushed over my face as he pushed me away.
“You’re a fucking pain in my ass, you know that?” he rasped as he caught his breath.
“Yeah,” I answered as he yanked me toward him again. “What are you gonna do about it?”
16
TUCKER
“Not close enough. And it never will be,” Patrick said, and before I knew it, his lips were smashed against mine.
I couldn’t stop myself from kissing him back, tasting him because I craved having Patrick on my tongue, but I only gave myself a split second before my good sense took over, and I pushed him away. “You’re a fucking pain in my ass, you know that?”
It took everything inside of me not to claim him right then and there. Hell, it had been like that all night. He hadn’t texted me at all since Christmas and only sporadically replied to my messages. And when I stopped sending them first, I just didn’t hear from him at all, yet tonight of all nights, he’d touched base? Joked about letting me lick him as if I hadn’t basically put my cards on the table when I flew across the fucking country to decorate his house? A person didn’t just do that for someone who didn’t matter to them, and near radio silence since then had hurt.