Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 26774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 134(@200wpm)___ 107(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 134(@200wpm)___ 107(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
I shatter with another cry, the pleasure making me black out.
Why is he so, so good at this?
As soon as I regain consciousness, I can only think of one thing: I want him to lose control...the way he made me lose mine.
Ronan's head falls back against the seat as I reach for him. I stare at his face, paying close attention to even the slightest change in his expression. It tells me when to tighten or loosen my grip, when to move faster or slower, when to tenderly caress the weight under his length.
My own breath quickens when I feel him growing in the circle of my grip, and my still-wet folds become swollen once again when Ronan growls my name out as he spills over my fingers.
I lose track of time.
Or the number of times we make each other come.
And when I wake up, there's only one thing I'm sure of.
I've absolutely lost my freaking mind!
I can feel myself paling as our bus pulls into Laramie, and my mind plays back everything that happened between Ronan and me with explicit accuracy.
On a bus, Cay!
A bus!
And with a stranger at that!
As soon as the bus comes to a stop, I grab my bag and practically run down the aisle, desperate for fresh air and space to think. Ronan follows at a more measured pace, giving me the distance I clearly need.
The Laramie bus station is small but busy. I scan the departure board, relieved to see there's a bus to Hartland leaving in twenty minutes. Just enough time to compose myself, but not so long that I'll have to make conversation.
I find a seat in the waiting area, staring fixedly at my phone as if it holds the answers to the universe. But I can feel him watching me from a few feet away, his presence impossible to ignore.
Finally, he approaches, settling into the seat beside me with casual grace.
"So we're not really going to talk about it?" His voice is low, meant only for my ears.
I keep my eyes on my phone. "Do I look like I want to talk about it?"
"How honest do you want me to be?"
That makes me look up. "Excuse me?"
"You look like someone who would rather die than admit you felt the same thing I did."
Heat floods my cheeks. Before I can formulate a suitably cutting response, a bus pulls up outside, and the station attendant calls out, "Hartland, now boarding."
Saved by the bell.
I grab my bag and hurry toward the door, relief and disappointment warring in my chest.
"I'll see you around, darling."
I can't help glowering at him over my shoulder. "I am not your darling—"
His smile is slow and confident, like a man who knows something I don't. "Yet."
Chapter Six
I KNOW YOU BLOCKED my number. You can't keep putting me off. Doing so just hurts both of us.
Ronan didn't even think twice about deleting the message and blocking yet another number. The past was finally in the past. But such a lesson had not come without costs, since it had taken weeks of deliberately staying away from Acacia for Ronan to get his head out of his ass and realize what truly mattered.
And that was her.
Tension turned him rigid behind the wheel of his black truck, fingers gripping the steering wheel a bit too hard as he watched Acacia struggle with the oversized trash bag.
The temperature had dropped to fifteen degrees that morning, and her breath materialized in small puffs of white mist as she hauled the garbage toward the dumpster behind Hartland Books.
It had been two weeks since she'd arrived in town. Two weeks since he'd watched her climb down from the bus at Laramie station, only to turn her back on him without a single word of goodbye. Two weeks of him keeping his distance while simultaneously ensuring he knew her every move.
This morning, she'd dressed more appropriately for the weather than when she first arrived—thick wool coat, knee-high boots, and a knitted beanie pulled over her red-gold hair—but the way she moved betrayed her discomfort with the cold. Miami-bred through and through. Acacia might as well have landed on another planet.
He smiled, remembering how she'd tried to de-ice her apartment door lock with hot water three days ago, only to create an even thicker sheet of ice when the water instantly froze. Or the time she'd stepped into a snow drift that was much deeper than it appeared, disappearing almost up to her waist with a shriek that had nearly made him blow his cover.
Yesterday, she'd worn leather-soled boots on her walk to work, and he'd watched from across the street as she performed an unintentional ice-skating routine down Main Street, arms pinwheeling wildly before she managed to grab onto a lamppost.
Every damn time, his heart had nearly stopped.
Miami to Hartland, Wyoming. The difference might as well be what divided heaven and hell, and Ronan had seen how it wasn't just the weather Acacia had originally struggled with.