Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 107453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
“You’re doing great,” Aubrey coaches me as she plucks the tweezer at a two-by-four in my palm.
I clench my jaw as she fishes it out, then unleash a long, “Fuuuuck. Did it go all the way through?”
Ledger tries but fails to stifle a laugh. “Let me get this straight. You can handle a puck to, I dunno, pretty much any portion of your body, but not a couple splinters?”
Looking up, I hiss at him. “Dude, there are not a couple splinters in my hand. There are ten thousand.”
Ledger arches a dubious brow my way as Aubrey soldiers on. “Math is still hard for you.”
“I hope you get a splinter in your—ah fuck,” I howl as Aubrey hunts for a jagged plank. “Ahhh! I think that one’s lodged in my love line. I’ll never be able to have kids now.”
Aubrey laughs. “That’s not how love lines work.”
“Feels that way,” I grumble.
“I need a little more light,” Aubrey says.
Ledger lowers his phone, the flashlight shining brighter on my wounded hand. “Who knows? You might never be able to jack off again,” Ledger muses.
“I’m right-handed,” I spit out. “Also, a puck to the collarbone hurts less. A puck to the stomach. A puck to the ass.”
“Maybe you should wear pads when you’re doing hero duty.”
“These are nasty little splinters,” Aubrey says sympathetically as she hunts another bastard down. “I have to pull them out slowly so they don’t break off in your hand.”
“That can happen?” I sure hope my voice isn’t as high-pitched as it feels.
Ledger doesn’t chuckle this time. He actually frowns. “That one is jagged and shit,” he says when Aubrey expertly tugs one out.
I stare up at him. “I told you so.”
“They’re so painful and so big,” she says, stopping to squeeze my shoulder.
And that’s nice. All her touches are so nice. She inches closer, straddling my thigh, her hair brushing against my chest as she bends over my hand, searching and plucking.
And that’s not too bad. Her hair tickling my face. The scent of her shampoo is kind of tropical. Not coconut, not pineapple—more like the tropical rainforest.
Tonight, I’m going to dream of tropical rainforests populated by one very hot nurse. “You just have tweezers in your bag?” I ask, circling back to how fast she whipped the tool out a few minutes ago when she’d assessed the damage to my palm.
I can feel her smile as she says, “Yes, I do. Tissues too. Also Tylenol and Advil.”
I look up at Ledger, smiling dopily as I say, “I love women.”
“I do too.”
Then I look to Aubrey again. “You’re a perfect nurse.”
With a teasing grin, she asks, “Are you going to get Florence Nightingale effect because I’m taking out your splinters?”
No. Only because I’m pretty sure I fell for you a while ago.
I don’t answer. I grit my teeth, taking the pain as I let her finish.
“Last one,” she says victoriously as she holds up the final sliver of wood in the sunlight.
I let out the biggest breath. “Thank you.”
Ledger claps my shoulder. “Thanks go to you for saving that kid. That was badass.”
“It really was, Dev,” Aubrey says.
My chest warms from the praise. I do love compliments. But the truth is, I did what anyone would have done. “I was just in the right place at the right time. That’s all.”
Aubrey scoffs. “No. You don’t get to downplay it.”
I roll my eyes. “I swear it was no big deal. Anyone would have done the same.”
“But not anyone did. You did,” she points out.
“That was baller,” Ledger says, then he shoots me a cocky grin. “But if you need me to take care of Aubrey tonight so you can rest…”
I growl. “Nothing can stop me from fucking. Even a broken dick.”
Aubrey’s laughing. “The two of you and your broken dick jokes.” But then she stops laughing, her lips curving into a seductive smile. “And speaking of non-broken dicks…”
Ledger gets behind the wheel faster than he flies down the ice.
The elevator up to our room is just too tempting. We’re all alone in it, the three of us, so I slide a hand down Aubrey’s arm, slow and tantalizing, savoring the way her breath catches.
She’s so responsive, it’s addictive. She seems to crave touch, and Ledger must sense it, too, since he brushes strands of that copper hair away from her face, eliciting gasps.
Yeah, that’s our girl. She loves being touched, being played with, being the center of attention. “She loves it when we play with her hair,” I observe.
“I’ve noticed. Bet she’d love it if we tugged on it,” he adds.
Aubrey’s big brown eyes widen. “I might…”
“…And pulled hard,” I say, dragging a finger down the side of her neck as I test out ideas. She likes it, too, when we tell her what we want to do to her. “What do you think, sweet thing? Think you’d like a little spanking again? Some hair pulling?”