Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Chapter four
Ashley
Awareness comes to me with a warm sensation and a strange sound, almost like a crackle. I blink, and the warm glow of a fire in a stone fireplace is in my direct view. It’s then that I notice the soft, snuggly blanket covering me. I lay there, basking in the comfort of the moment and trying to remember where and how it came about. But I’m sleepy, so very sleepy, and at the moment, I’m obviously safe and comfortable, so much so, I’m not ready to do anything but shut my eyes and drift away. In my mind, I’m back in time, back in Houston, and I’m waking up in Noah’s bed for the first time, waking up to the sensation of his big, hard body wrapped around mine.
“You’re awake,” he murmurs at my ear, his voice like warm, honeyed whiskey that sets me on fire and then soothes every part of me.
“Hmmm,” I reply groggily, basking in everything that is this man. “I am.” My eyes pop open as the full impact of the morning after hits me. “Wait. Is this where you want me to leave?”
He gives a low chuckle and nuzzles my neck. “The last thing I want right now is for you to leave. Unless,” he presses the thick ridge of his erection between my thighs, “do you want to leave?”
“No,” I say, arching into him. “I don’t want to leave.”
“Good,” he says. “Because I make a killer waffle, and since I plan to keep you naked and in bed all day, you’re going to need your energy.” He surprises me by rotating me around to face him and then I’m staring into those deeply brown eyes, my hand stroking the rasp of his shadowed jaw. “Unless you have another plan for the day?” he queries.
As if I could even remember anything but him right now. “Waffles are good.”
“Yes,” he says, molding me close. “Waffles are good.” He leans in to kiss me, and I cover his mouth with my hand. “I need a toothbrush.”
He kisses my hand and then kisses me anyway, lips to lips, before he says, “toothbrush, waffles, and then back to bed.” He throws off the blanket and stands up, naked as the day he was born, and good lord, the man has a perfectly tight backside.
He turns around, showing me other really perfect parts of his body. He takes my hand and pulls me (as naked as the day I was born as well) to my feet with him. “I’ll show you where the shower is.” He scoops me up and starts walking.
“Noah,” I laugh, but there’s no question that I’m thoroughly charmed by this man.
I come back awake with a smile on my lips and the same crackling fireplace in front of me. The same warm blanket is on top of me, but this time, a deep muffled male voice resonates through the room and me, stroking me into a seductive sigh. “Noah,” I whisper, my lashes lowering only to pop back open. Noah.
I shoot to a sitting position, my gaze jerking around what appears to be a cabin of some sort. What the hell is happening? Where am I? How did I get here? I press my fingers to my temple and try to remember something, anything, when Noah’s voice lifts in the air again. “No,” he says to someone. “I had no choice. She was a sitting duck. If I could find her, they could as well, and if they found her, she’d be dead.”
My hand goes to my throat. Dead. I’d be dead.
“I’m not letting that happen.” He’s silent a moment. “I didn’t need an excuse to go after her,” he adds. “I was never going to let her go.”
Never going to let me go? I like this. I hate this. I’m so very confused by this and everything to do with me and this man. My hand leaves my neck and presses to the cushion of the soft cloth couch beneath me. I’m even more confused when Noah, or Aaron—they told me his real name is Aaron—or whoever he is walks in the room looking like sex and sin in jeans, no shirt, feet bare, and two steaming cups in hand. I’ve lost time. I’ve lost the time between the moment he showed up in my bedroom and now. I will the memories, the time, to come back, but my God, he’s gorgeous. He’s perfect. The perfect killer, I remind myself. The perfect shirtless killer. I blanch. Wait. If he’s shirtless, what am I wearing and what did I forget? I throw my legs off the cushion to the floor and sit up. He sits down next to me and offers me one of the cups he’s holding.
“Milk chocolate cocoa, the way you like it, with whipped cream.”