Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
He nodded. “I would like to get to know you. As a person. Your past. Truthfully, Hannah, I want to know everything about you.”
My entire body electrified, nerve endings igniting under his gaze, at the depth of his words. Beau wasn’t dancing around the pulsing, living entity between us. Beau was plainly showing his want for me.
The seed of hope I’d been nurturing longer than I cared to admit sprouted inside of me. A green, vibrant living thing.
Even though my body instantly stiffened at Beau wanting to get to know me. That meant questions about my past. Sure, he knew about Waylon and hadn’t run for the hills. He had still wanted me in a variety of tawdry and delicious ways after I’d told him about my now ex-husband. The speed at which Marty had gotten the process done had me scared. It was too good to be true. Too clean. I was still waiting for the catch.
Now Beau wanted to get to know me. Further. Even with his knowledge of Waylon.
That was bad enough. But knowing about the trailer park, the mother who cared less about me than her next fix, the hunger, the cold, the dirty clothes, and all the scars that came from that… that didn’t exactly make me a desirable prospect.
Even though I was terrified at showing Beau those sides of me, I was willing to take the risk. For him.
I took another sip of whisky. “What do you want to know?”
Beau’s eyes glittered for a moment as he took a sip of his own.
I braced myself.
He leaned over to grasp something on the coffee table, something I hadn’t been aware I’d left there until I saw it in his hands. “Why do you have a library card?”
The question caught me off guard.
“Doesn’t your generation have Kindles?” he continued. “Even I have a Kindle.”
His eyes were intent on me, dancing.
“You need glasses to see the words? And have them so big there are only two words per page?” I teased back.
He rewarded me with a smirk. “I’ve got life in me yet, and I can see just fine.” His eyes traveled the length of my body.
And just like that, the slight flush of my cheeks turned into a full-body inferno. The light banter and atmosphere of teasing had made way for sexual tension so thick, you couldn’t cut through it with a chainsaw.
I took a deep breath.
Then another.
The area below my legs throbbed. My mouth moistened. Need clutched onto me like a parasite, sucking all coherent thought. All I wanted to do was taste Beau’s lips, fill my body with his decidedly large cock.
His eyes were hooded, his face so tight with hunger that it was clear he was thinking along the same lines.
What reason did we have not to fuck again?
Beau took a visible breath, like he was steadying himself, talking himself out of something. He gripped my library card with such force, I thought he’d crush it.
He looked down as if he only just remembered it was in his hands.
“Library card.” His words were thick, voice hoarse and sounding half mad. “Why do you have one?”
“I, um, love to read.” I cleared my throat as if the action would scoop all the desire I felt for this man out of me. “Always have. We didn’t have money for books growing up. I’d buy second hand when I could, but then I’d have to take them…” I trailed off, smelling stale cigarette smoke, fresh liquor, hearing the TV blast, my mother yelling at me for something or another, her latest boyfriend leering or sneering at me while I tried to immerse myself in a fictional world.
“I tend to get immersed in books.” I smoothed down the throw on the sofa, not looking at him. “And it wasn’t … safe to get immersed so completely when I was at the place I lived.” I didn’t call it a home. It was never that. I hadn’t had a home until I met a little girl named Clara and her grumpy father.
I rolled my neck, still not looking at Beau but memorizing every scent, feel of this living room into my being so I could carry this home around with me when I was gone. And I would leave. No matter that things with Beau were … whatever they were. Clara would be in school, there would be no reason for him to have a full-time, live-in nanny. I’d be forced back into the life that I’d been so sure was my escape—nursing school, getting a job, paying off my loans, getting on my feet.
The thought of that future now made me a bit queasy.
I blinked the room back into existence. Beau was watching me with an intent expression, brows knitted together, hands balled on his knees, his features no longer playful or light.