Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
“Maybe I’ll get a bunch of weird cravings and have you running around town. Or base jumping around town.”
I chuckle. “I’d get it all for you. To keep you strong for the baby.”
“That gives me motivation to get pregnant lots, right? If you’re going to be my servant.”
“We’re going to get started soon.”
I trail off when the waiter approaches, taking our orders. The entire time I’m ordering, I want to look over at my woman instead.
I can feel her smiling at me. I can feel the want mirrored in me, both of us needing it.
“But before that,” she says, once the waiter’s gone. “We have to tell Dad.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about that?”
Her shoulders slump. “It reminds me too much of it never happened.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I tell her. “It was all I could think to say. I thought you’d laugh at me if I told you the truth about how I really felt, about what I really wanted.”
“How would you explain it to Dad?” she asks.
I sit back, drumming my fingers on the table.
“I’d tell him it finally happened. I knew the moment I saw my woman, the moment I saw you, Lauren, like I always said I would. I’d tell him I want to protect you, provide for you, and be there for you in every single way. I’ll never let anybody hurt you. I’ll never mistreat you.”
I’ll love you, I almost say, right until the day we die.
“I’ll tell him I could never speak about what happened to me…until I met you. I’ll tell him every time I feel this new tattoo stinging, I think of you, of how much it means, this new….”
“Silas,” she says, voice quivering as if she wants us to be close again like we were in the field after the jump. “You can say it. Whatever it is.”
“This light in my life,” I say, laughing at myself. “I know that sounds cheesy, but that’s what you are. You’re tattooing about the past, but there’s none of the darkness. Even with your design, with a touch of nature, it’s like you understood it even before I told you.”
“I knew it was special to you,” she whispers.
“And you did an amazing job.”
She wrings her hands. “Am I the only one who wants to be closer than….” She touches the table. “This right now?”
“No,” I say intensely. “But I’m not sure it’s a good idea, us being alone together.”
She leans forward, causing her wavy hair to bounce around her shoulders. She’s calling to me with every gesture, every tremor of her lips, every time she bites down.
“Why?” she asks.
I smirk, meeting her eyes, reading her. “You know why. Do you want me to say it here?”
She looks around.
The closest people are four tables over, out of earshot.
“You could use…creative language,” she says.
“You’re the creative one,” I reply.
She folds her arms, causing her breasts to shift, adding to her perfection. “I watched an interview before where you said finding a line down a mountainside is like a painter finding the best angle…or something like that. Well? Were you making it up?”
“You’re too clever for me. Okay….”
I pause when the waiter brings our drinks, saying thank you and then turning back to my woman.
“If we’re alone, as in truly alone, in a penthouse suite of a luxury hotel…I won’t be able to stop myself from….”
“Remember,” she says as somebody walks by. “Creative language.”
I grin. “I’ll have to make our future happen.”
“I get what you’re saying,” she replies. “But what if…you know, I’ve never tried to make the future happen before? What if I’m not up to the challenge?”
“It’s not a challenge,” I tell her gruffly. “You’re my woman. You don’t have to do anything special or act a certain way. Just be yourself. Be you…be there, be….”
I trail off.
Be naked and sexy and moan in that sweet way when I suck your nipples.
“Between this and that dance you did for me when getting into the jumpsuit,” I say, “you’re really driving me crazy today.”
She picks up her hot cocoa, pursing her lips as she blows on it. “That’s my specialty.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Lauren
“Did you start with tattoos?” he asks, cutting into his steak.
Having an early dinner leaves us enough time to drive back to the runway, hop in the helicopter, and return to the city…enough time for us to sneak around and hide this amazing thing we’re building together.
“Or was it a different kind of art?”
“I was a portrait artist as a kid,” I tell him. “I loved drawing ever since I was little. I was lucky enough to have Dad as my…well, Dad. So he was able to enroll me in lessons. And then, one day in high school, I found this book on tattoos in the public library. I became obsessed, as in I started staring at people everywhere, analyzing their tattoos.”