Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 97369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Milo clears his throat and returns his attention to the sandwich. “What do you need?” His voice is thick and tight like my muscles or the ache in my chest.
It’s a rare moment to see Milo without his cowboy hat. Without jeans. Without a shirt. I have never seen Milo in a pair of low-hanging jogging shorts.
“I’m hungry,” I manage to say past the frog in my throat. Seeing Milo like this does things to me. I can’t stop wetting my lips and gulping down copious amounts of saliva. But seriously, my nipples beneath the thin layer of pink satin … what’s going on down there? A heavy sensation settles between my legs. Why is my body betraying me at the worst possible moment?
I have a boyfriend. He’s good for me. I think.
As a young girl, I had a crush on Milo, but I’m no longer that young girl. The way he embarrassed me in front of Benton makes me want to scratch out his eyeballs.
Yet as I stand idle in the kitchen, barely able to catch my next breath, all I can think about is what it would feel like to kiss Milo. To feel his strong, calloused hands touching me intimately. His tongue warm and wet against mine. I imagine what my nipples would feel like trapped between his teeth. His mouth between my legs. Every possible inappropriate thought explodes in my mind. I think of the girl he fucked in the barn, and I imagine it was me. My legs around his waist. My name on his lips.
“You feeling okay?” he asks, glancing over his bare shoulder for a few seconds before sliding the sandwich onto a plate. “Your cheeks are red. Are you running a fever?”
My head eases side to side while I press my hands to my cheeks. They’re ablaze. I’m eighteen. Milo’s a twenty-six-year-old man. A man who has always treated me like a little sister. Only, I’m not his little sister. And I’m not the little girl he drove to school every day. I’m not the young, scared girl who clung to him at night to ward off bad dreams and keep from drowning in grief.
The young woman I’ve become has raging hormones. They don’t care that I’m eighteen and he’s twenty-six.
I don’t know if it’s the time of night, the dark kitchen, my nightgown, his lack of a shirt, knowing Fletcher is out of town, my feeling unloved and lost … or a toxic combination of everything, but I can’t stop my feet from padding their way to him. And while the space between us evaporates, his gaze tracks down my body—not like a brother would look at his sister.
“Milo,” I whisper.
He takes a bite of his burnt sandwich and mumbles over it, “Indie …”
I allow my gaze to settle onto his chest, my mind filling with curiosity and questions about his tattoos. The meanings behind them. When he got them. Will he get more?
And then I think about him in the barn with that woman again. That half-naked woman on his sofa. All I can see is the tight flex of muscles along his back and across his perfect ass, shifting and bending with each rhythmic thrust.
I can’t help my gulp while I lift my gaze to his eyes. They’re unblinking and dark, not the soft blue they are during the day. My hands slowly lift, preparing to rest on his chest, fingers splayed out wide.
“Don’t,” he snaps while shaking his head.
My hands stop midair.
“Why?” I whisper.
He tears his sandwich apart.
I stare at it. “What do you see when you look at me?” I whisper before risking another glance up at him.
“My grave, Indie.” He shoves half the sandwich into my hand and brushes past me. “I see my fucking grave.”
7
THE KISS OF DEATH
“Don’t you have stuff to do?” I ask Milo the next night when he settles into the corner of the leather sofa with a drink in one hand and the TV remote in his other hand.
“I’m doing it,” he says, staring at the screen and the men with guns spraying bullets everywhere.
“Can’t you drink and watch TV in the barn?”
“The barn? You realize there’s an entire apartment in the barn, right?” He eyes me with one raised eyebrow.
“Sorry, Milo. Did I rub your sensitive side the wrong way? Do you not want anyone thinking you live in a barn?” Not gonna lie … I’m a little on edge.
Pissed off at Fletcher because he’s so fucking deplorable.
Pissed off at Milo because I want him more than anything.
Pissed off that Benton refuses to come over because of Milo.
But what pisses me off the most was the way Milo made me feel like a fool last night when I wanted to touch him. He made me feel like an errant child.
“Here’s the thing, Indie…” he pinches the bridge of his nose for a few seconds “…I have to be here to keep an eye on you because you couldn’t wait a full twenty-four hours after your dad left town before doing something stupid. I don’t wanna babysit, but I don’t have a choice. So to answer your question … I can’t watch TV in the barn because I have to stay here and keep an eye on you.”