Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 76780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Atlas steps aside, allowing Jax to walk into the house. His eyes never leave mine. I chew on my bottom lip as my cheeks heat to an unhealthy degree. I’d be embarrassed by the way my skin flames hot, but Atlas’s amused expression somehow makes it okay.
“What do you need help moving?” Jax asks. “I brought reinforcements.”
I shed my coat and flex my useless biceps. Atlas’s perfect teeth flash with a grin. He drinks me in for an obscenely long second before motioning for us to follow him to his bedroom. His room is decent-sized, and he’s clearly in the middle of assembling a bed frame. Mental images of him naked with a sheet haphazardly thrown across his spent, still-wet cock have me stifling a groan.
“I can’t put it together by myself. I need help holding one side while I screw together the other.”
He instructs us where to position ourselves. I’m not eager to put together a bed, but since it grants me access to be able to stare at Atlas the whole time while his shoulder muscles bulge with effort, I deal with it. Jax is yapping away about the next Chamber meeting, but I tune it out. All I care about is Atlas.
Obsessed.
Oh my God.
It’s like the time I thought my neighbor in New York was hot. He was married. To a female. And had two kids. Still, I helped him with whatever he needed help with. Stopped by to visit for whatever reasons I could come up with. And shamelessly stalked him on Facebook, hearting all his pictures and posts. It wasn’t until we moved to Brigs Ferry Bay that I realized he’d unfriended me. Fucker. Looking back, I was slightly obsessed. Then, I got the hots for my straight, homophobic history teacher. But, rather than simply unfriending me, he tried to kill me.
My obsessions don’t always turn out so great.
At least Atlas is single, gay, and interested.
I don’t realize I’m daydreaming until his calloused hands drift over my soft ones. He’s squatted down beside me, suffocating me with his scent today—clean like soap and cherry limeade lip gloss.
“I’m going to screw together this end,” he rumbles, his voice low and deadly to my ability to be chill. “You can let go now.”
I release the furniture to scramble back. He winks at me, sending a flutter of butterflies to dance inside my stomach. Jax, thank God, is completely oblivious as he holds one end of the bed in one hand and texts with the other. Shamelessly, I check out Atlas’s ass in his jeans. All that dark blue hugging his muscular curves inspires me to find every cerulean, azure, cobalt, and Aegean blue paint I own so I can stroke it over a canvas and try like hell to recreate the picturesque sight in front of me.
It doesn’t take long before we get the bed put together. Between the three of us, we’re able to slide the box springs and then mattress onto the frame. Jax’s phone rings, so he excuses himself to take the call in the other room.
It’s just me and Atlas.
Atlas and me.
And his giant bed.
“Want to help me put the bedding on?” His deep voice asks for so much more than assistance with such a task.
The deep timbre invites me to do filthy, dark, twisted things on his bed with him.
“Sure.” I shrug, my gaze boring into him, answering both the asked and unasked questions.
He runs his pink tongue over his bottom lip, forcing me to follow its seductive movement. His lips quirk on one side and he nods. “Okay, then.”
Okay, then.
He pulls some bedding from a box and tosses a fitted sheet at me. It takes some wrestling, but we manage to get it on the mattress. Tension is thick in the air, and all that can be heard is our breathing as we make the bed. It’s dark gray like a storm cloud that’s being chased by a rainbow. I fling myself onto the made bed, arching a brow at him.
“Boring color.”
“Not anymore.” He shamelessly rakes his gaze down my entire body. “Nice Docs.”
I grin at him. “I have them in a million colors.”
“A million?”
“Give or take a few.”
“I have them in black and brown.”
“Yours are probably from the 90s, too, right?”
He doesn’t take the bait of my taunt over his age. Instead, he shrugs and says, “I like yellow. Looks good with gray.”
Again, my face burns hot. What is it about Atlas Larson that makes me so damn cheesy?
“It’s a yellow day,” I blurt out. “Tomorrow might be a blue day.”
He follows my stare to his all-blue outfit. “You dress by color?”
“I dress by mood.” I study his handsome face for a beat. “It’s been black for a long, long time. Feels good to drag some color out of the dregs of my closet.”