Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Catie found herself in a quandary. She and Veni told each other everything… but Danny had been so vulnerable last night and this morning, his hand tight on hers. She wanted—needed—to protect him. “I had a good reason, Veni, but I can’t tell you what,” she said, deciding on another kind of honesty.
“Hmm, I’d accuse you of shifting loyalties to a boy, but I know you better than that,” Veni said. “And don’t you think I didn’t notice that that sexy hunk Viliame left with you two.” She whistled and Catie could all but see her fanning her face. “I’ve never seen him up that close before, and oh my lady parts, that man is fiiiiiiine. Almost as fine as my Ben, but not everyone can be a delicious scrumptious sex god.”
Laughing, Catie leaned up against the counter. “Thanks for not getting mad that I can’t tell you everything yet.”
“I know you, Cates. You wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t necessary. So I’m all good to tell the others the media is blowing smoke up everyone’s butts?”
Catie took a deep breath. “About that.”
8
NOPE, NOPE, NOPETY NOPE (AND NOPE!)
Her ears were still ringing with the sound of Laveni’s hysterical laughter when she walked back into the gym. “Veni gives us three dates before we blow our cover and start lobbing virtual pies at each other’s faces.” She scowled. “Charlie is now my favorite person.”
“World ain’t seen nothing yet,” Danny said, still doing those crunches but with a little more heat to his face now, a touch of sweat on his brow. “If we can be that bad alone, imagine how much chaos we can create together.”
“Hmm.” Still, nudged on by her best friend’s lack of faith in their acting skills, she snapped a pic of Danny as he sat up after completing the crunches. Hair a touch disheveled and gray tee contrasting against the brown of his skin, a little stubble on his jaw, he looked disgustingly good.
“You okay with me posting this?” There were rules in their ongoing war—that they didn’t post private photos of each other was one of them.
She had a lot of images of him playing rugby with the family or just hanging out. Mostly because she’d been taking photos of everyone else and he’d been in them, but she’d never posted any of those images. Family was private, was to be held safe.
Danny gave it a glance. “Yeah, sure. What’re you going to write?”
Catie got an evil look on her face as she tapped away without telling him. Knowing her all too well, he grabbed his own phone and wasn’t the least surprised to find she’d written: This rando followed me home last night. Should I throw him out into the snow? Vote yes for yes and no for yes.
“Oh, like that, is it?” he muttered and typed up a comment even as the post began to rack up likes at the speed of light.
Caitlin, we talked about this. Be nice, or I won’t give you what you most want in the whole wide world.
As he’d expected, his comment set the thread on fire. Everyone thought he was talking about sex. Flame emojis. Tongue emojis. Eggplants. And it degenerated from there.
“What?” he said innocently when she glared at him as her notifications went nuts. “I was talking about the cookies.”
Still glaring, she stomped out—which was difficult to achieve since she was wearing those blades that made her move with a light bounce to her step. But her grace wasn’t only because of the prostheses. It was her. He’d seen her in motion on the track, and holy hell, the woman was pure liquid lightning.
He was a runner too, burst into punches of motion on the field, but he didn’t move like Catie. She moved like she’d been born to run, where to him, running was just one part of his toolbox for the game. After a lifetime of training, her entire body was streamlined for her chosen sport. But as a sprinter, she had curves aplenty. Especially those glutes that were toned and round and—
Whoa.
Wait.
Where the fuck had that come from?
He did not think about Catie’s butt!
Okay, fine, he’d admired it now and then—hell, it was fantastic. He’d have had to be blind not to notice. But he’d noticed in a way that wasn’t this conscious. It had just been a passing thought. That hey, Catie was curvy there and it was hot, and then the thought had been gone because it was Catie.
Except now they were pretending to be in a relationship and he was going to be getting a lot closer to those tight, round curves.
His cock reacted.
Horrified, he glanced down with a stern “No.” He was permitted the odd admiring thought or two, but never would he actually act on them.
It would mess up their whole thing.