Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
I race the last few feet, and thankfully, I have big long legs, so I get there on time. I open my arms and brace her against a wicked fall. Her elbow connects with my chin, and her head nearly headbutts mine, but then she settles in against me, her body soft and warm and curvy.
Soft. Warm. Curvy. So many curves.
My dick stands up immediately and gives a hero pose, and when Echo leans into me, turning her face to bury her nose in my T-shirt, my arms turn into the consistency of gravy. And not thick gravy, either. I breathe in her coconutty scent, which is either coming from her hair or skin, and think about how fitting it is, given that she just fell straight down from the tree like a plummeting coconut herself.
I quickly lower her down, but not before she sniffs at me. I hope it’s not a response to what I just did. I hope she didn’t notice me inhaling her scent like it’s the anti-venom for some kind of snakebite that I may or may not have just received in my own imagination. “Why do you smell like bacon?” she asks, wrinkling her nose.
On her feet, smiling at me like that with a twinkle in her eyes, she makes my heart leap and tumble like I’m trying to do gymnastics that four-year-old kids could probably accomplish, though I fail comically. “I might have been cooking bacon, yes.”
“So you don’t buy special bacon-scented deodorant?”
“No, sadly. But I wish that was a thing.”
“You can get mints that taste like bacon. And candy too. Gum as well.”
“I must discover these things immediately. I’ll put them on my mental to-do list.”
“Ahh. Not the written one?”
“I never write things down.”
“Hmm.” She stares at the treehouse and then frowns at it and her suitcase. “I suppose I should have done the smart thing and opened it, then carted things up bit by bit. I wouldn’t have risked breaking my neck then. I’m rather stubborn, and I don’t like to be told I can’t do something. Also, if you did wear bacon-scented deodorant, that would have explained the raccoons.”
“How did you get into hacking?” I unconsciously blurt out.
I’m immediately embarrassed, so I bend down to pick up her suitcase, which weighs approximately eight tons and is filled with two elephants, a rhino, four monkeys, one panther, one hippo, and at least eight other jungle animals that I can’t think of right now since I turn to climb the ladder and find Echo with her arms crossed, her breasts pushed up tantalizingly over the unbuttoned part of her blouse.
“I guess I found some friends who had some skills, and they might also have had similar interests. They taught me things, and I taught them things, and we fed off each other. I didn’t let my mom know, but there really wasn’t much I told her anyway. I…yeah. That’s it.” It’s said without bitterness, not even in the underlying tone. It’s said without much emotion at all, but I’d be extremely insensitive if I couldn’t understand the pain in those words.
I haul the suitcase, which is so overweight that it threatens to tear my arm clean off—wouldn’t that make for the best late-night horror ghost story about some dude who climbed a treehouse and his arm tore clean off and was still clutching the suitcase when he looked back down at the bottom of the ladder?
I make it to the top and push open the door. The door is basically a rectangular portal for someone who is approximately ten years old—a slight ten years at that. I grunt like a gorilla who hasn’t had his morning banana yet as I haul the suitcase up and swing it around in front of me before shoving it through the door. I give it a mighty push, and it budges about half an inch. I shove at it again before crawling up behind it.
It’s a good thing I’m not afraid of narrow or small spaces. I have to do a bit of shoving and tugging and some more ornery gorilla grunting before I get my own bulk through the door. Once I managed to squeeze in, I was surprised to find that the roof was peaked and high, and the square-shaped room was quite spacious. I still have to bend at the shoulders as I walk over to open the window panels and latch them into place to let some light in.
Hmm. Someone even went to the trouble of putting screens in place. This thing was professionally built.
“There’s an air mattress and a bed in a bag already.”
I whirl around at the sound of Victoria’s voice and slam my head straight into a beam. Ouch! Wonder who put that there? How very rude. I rub at the spot and wince as she puts up two hands to warn me, then lets them fall back to her sides.