Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77354 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77354 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
He grins and pulls out packets of kettle chips, corn chips, popcorn, and pretzels. “Worth, are you single?” I ask. “Because I just became extremely attracted to you.”
Bennett bends and kisses me on the head. The boys head to the chairs while Nadia and I take seats on barstools.
“So how did you meet Leo?” I ask Nadia.
She shrugs. “A party. A friend of mine was opening a club.” Her eyes flit to the door. “I’m just going to pop to the ladies’ room.” She pats me on the hand, takes her phone and slides off her stool.
I peek over at Bennett. As I suspected, his phone is nowhere to be seen. He glances over at me and I blow him a kiss. I swear I catch the beginnings of a blush before the TV snags his attention. I’m not even going to pretend to be interested. I can barely cope with the rules of sports I’ve grown up with; I’m not going to start to learn weird American games.
Nadia is taking her time. I hope she’s okay in there. I’m just about to take my phone out and text Eira when she reappears.
“Has it started?” she asks me.
I nod. “I think so.”
“Shall we go and sit?” she asks.
“Oh, I thought we could chat?” I say. “Are you from New York?”
She glances between me and Leo. I’m not sure I’m going to be very helpful keeping her attention away from him for the evening. She seems super keen to be physically close with him.
“Russia,” she says.
“Oh!” I reply. “I didn’t detect an accent.”
She shrugs, her eyes pinned on the screen now. She’s not interested in me. “I’ve been modeling so long, I guess I lost it.”
“Oh fun. You’re a model?” I ask, stuffing two corn chips in my mouth.
“Yeah, I still do some.”
“And that’s why you came to New York?” I ask her, desperate to keep her attention for as long as I can. “I’d never been before this trip. It’s a great city.”
“It’s a great city if you have money,” she says. “Otherwise it’s a shit city.”
Her aggressive tone catches me off guard. I can’t think of what to say.
“Baby, I miss you,” she croons over to Leo. Apparently he doesn’t hear her, and her mouth sets in a hard line. She turns back to me. “You think we should go over?”
She really has no interest in getting to know me at all. I can’t exactly pin her to the barstool. “I’m going to stay here,” I say. “Bennett gets so little time with his friends, I don’t want to impose.”
Her eyes linger on me longer than before. They flit down my body, like she’s taking me in, then she looks away. “Yeah. You’re right.”
If she did go and sit with Leo, I might get a chance to open my laptop—but then Bennett would be miserable. No matter what happens on the TV, tonight’s going to be a losing game. For me at least.
TWENTY-ONE
Efa
As I push my key into the lock, Bennett’s hands slide over my hips from behind and his lips find my neck. I managed to keep Nadia from going to sit on Leo’s lap for forty-five minutes. And as much as I would have loved to have stayed at the bar and tried to discover any attacks on Fort through Bennett’s phone, it would have looked weird if I’d stayed on my own. So I joined them, and Bennett did his best not to snarl at Nadia. I’m proud of him.
I don’t know why I bothered to take my laptop. It was never going to work out. And it was only a hunch. There’s no conclusive evidence of where the attacks are coming from. That’s the problem.
“They loved you,” he growls. “You fit in so perfectly. Like you were their little sister or something.”
“That get you hot?” I turn and face him, and he braces his hands either side of my door. “That I’m your best friend’s little sister?” I angle my head up and lick along the seam of his lips. “You shouldn’t touch me, but you just can’t keep your hands off me.” I reach down to feel him and he’s already hard.
He’s always hard.
“I definitely can’t keep my hands off you.”
I face the door again and, this time, turn the key so we can get into the flat before this turns into something more than a PG groping.
“You managed to control yourself, unlike Nadia.” I kick the door closed and giggle, remembering the way she practically latched herself to Leo most of the night. “You think she was a cat in a previous life?” She spent a lot of the evening licking Leo’s ear. “No kink-shaming intended.”
Bennett groans. “Way to kill my boner.”
I laugh. “However old they get, men are always fifteen-year-old boys at heart. At least she seems genuinely into him.”