Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
I caught the scent of his face lotion and realized that the only reason I could identify it was because I’d been with him when he’d stepped out of the shower. The memory of him with a towel wrapped around his waist, emphasizing his rounded ass, flooded my veins with heat. It annoyed me how distracting he was.
“Good,” I grunted, not looking away from the screen. “Should edit together nicely.”
Adrian leaned closer, ostensibly to get a better view of the laptop. His shoulder bumped mine as he pointed at the screen. “Can you rewind that part? I want to see how the lighting turned out at that overlook.”
I clicked back, watching the footage of him and Nate standing by the overlook. In the frame, they looked good together—two attractive men against a winter wonderland backdrop. Exactly what we’d planned.
“Huh,” Adrian murmured.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just…” He shifted closer, studying the screen. I stopped breathing, if only to keep the scent of him from filling my nostrils. “Keep going. Let me see the rest.”
I scrolled through more clips, growing increasingly unnerved as a pattern became obvious. Every shot of Adrian was perfectly framed, catching him in the best light, highlighting the way the winter air had flushed his cheeks. The shots of Nate, on the other hand, were… functional. Adequate. Like an afterthought.
Shit.
“Interesting,” Adrian said, his voice carefully neutral.
“What’s interesting?” I asked, though I already knew I was fucked.
“Well, either Nate’s camera-shy, or…” He paused, letting the implication hang in the air. Then his voice turned teasing. “You seem to have a very specific idea of who the star of this date should be.”
Heat crawled up my neck. “Of course I do. The point of the project is the sponsored content. You’re the one wearing the Nordique pieces.”
“Uh-huh.” Adrian’s mouth twitched like he was fighting a smile. “And in this shot here, where Nate’s adjusting my scarf? You cut off his head entirely.”
“Camera malfunction.”
“Right. And this one where we’re both supposed to be admiring the view? Somehow, the frame managed to capture me in perfect profile while Nate’s mostly just… a flannel-covered shoulder.”
I slammed the laptop shut harder than necessary. “You’ll have what you need for the content. That’s what matters.”
“Maddox.” Adrian’s voice was soft, almost gentle. “Why didn’t you get more footage of Nate?”
“I got plenty of footage of Nate,” I said, and it was true. Footage of his boots, his elbows, the back of his head. Too much footage of Nate, if you asked me.
“Ahh, getting off on a technicality. I see.” Adrian shifted to face me fully, those blue eyes sparkling with something that looked dangerously like affection. “You hardly got any shots of his face, Maddie.”
My jaw clenched, but my insides melted at the soft shortening of my name. He’d done the same thing during sex, when his control had slipped.
“Maybe Nate’s not as photogenic as he thinks,” I argued, trying desperately to keep from admitting the truth.
Adrian’s laugh was warm and delighted. “Holy shit! You were jealous.”
“I was not—”
“You were!” He pointed an accusatory finger at me. “Grumpy, possessive Maddox Sullivan couldn’t stand watching another man charm me, so you sabotaged his screen time.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said, standing up to put distance between us. But Adrian followed, crowding into my space with that infuriating grin.
“Is it? Because looking at this footage, someone might think you don’t want to share me with anyone else.”
“You’re not mine to share,” I snapped, then immediately regretted the words when hurt flickered across his face.
But the hurt disappeared as quickly as it had come, replaced by something calculating. “No? Then you won’t mind if I call Nate about that barn dance. Maybe see if he wants to grab dinner one night before then.”
My hands clenched into fists at my sides. “Do whatever you want.”
“I will.” Adrian pulled out his phone, thumb hovering over the screen. “He did say I had a natural touch with horses. Maybe he could teach me to ride.”
A growl escaped my throat before I could stop it.
Adrian’s grin turned positively wicked. “Was that a no, Sullivan?”
“Fuck off, Hayes.”
“Make me,” he challenged, stepping close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body.
Needless to say, we burned the pasta. When we finally fell asleep after midnight, I was jelly-legged and dehydrated from all the rounds of sex we managed to have before our bodies simply couldn’t do it anymore. Thankfully, we’d managed to find a pair of clean sheets, but that was about it. We’d pulled the duvet over us and passed out.
Stress dreams haunted me after a while, the way they did more and more lately. A myriad of images that didn’t make sense but carried a sense of foreboding, or fear, or that horrible, overwhelming terror of missing something important.
“Maddox.” The voice sounded like my father’s but also like Michael’s. Or maybe it was Nate warning me off Adrian.