Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 138881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
“That’s one way to put it,” I say.
“Will you wear pickleball dresses when you’re working at the bakery?”
I toss him a playful look, unable to resist saying, “I don’t know. Do you want me to?”
He steals another glance at me. “They’re cute, I guess. Even though skort is a weird word.”
“But they don’t look weird?”
A smirk comes my way this time. “Not in the motherfucking least, Mabel.”
I hide a smile. I should stop flirting with him. I really should. “And yes, I’ll sometimes wear them when I work here.”
He paints some more, scrunching his brow like he’s noodling on something. “But I’m still not sure I believe you actually play pickleball, Mabel.”
I spin around, lifting my paintbrush like it’s a weapon. “I told you I do.”
“Really though?”
“Of course I do. I play with my friends,” I say. “Remy and Skylar and Trevyn. We all play in the city.”
“And by play, do you mean put on your cute clothes and catch up on each other’s lives at the court?”
I step closer, lock eyes with him, and drag the paintbrush down his shirt, leaving behind a stripe of robin’s-egg blue.
His green eyes pop. “You just painted my shirt.”
I slow-clap. “You’re right.”
He shakes his head, sighs heavily. “Good thing you’re wearing the third line.”
In a flash, he dips his brush into the red paint, then darts out a strong arm, wraps it around my waist, and grips me in place. He lifts the brush and brandishes it.
Inches from my face.
My breath catches.
Everything goes silent between us. The Frank Ocean tune finishes. The air crackles. He’s holding me and staring at me, all while threatening me with red paint in a way I want to be threatened, judging from the heat climbing up my legs.
“I have no choice,” he murmurs at last, then he drags the brush along the hollow of my throat.
It’s cool and soft, the paintbrush slick and surprisingly sensuous as he runs it slowly down to my chest, bristles turning a swath of my pale skin red. He stops at the neckline of my shirt.
All thought flees my head. I’m nothing but atoms and vibrating molecules. I can’t even speak. I’m just breathing—and breathing him in.
The scent of paint, delightfully non-toxic, mixes with his aftershave. Or maybe it’s bodywash. I don’t know, but that campfire-by-the-lake scent is not only going to my head, it’s going to my thighs. I squeeze them together, lick my lips, and try to find a word, a phrase—something to tease him with.
But when his brow furrows again, like he’s at war with himself, I stay quiet. His silent debate stretches a few seconds, then he gives in with a raspy, “You have red paint on your chest.”
“Like a candy apple,” I say.
His gaze strays to the canvas of me, his eyes turning darker, glimmering like emeralds. When he raises his face, he drops the brush to the floor. It clatters against the drop cloth, a spray of red splattering on the ground. But I don’t care where, since the sound of the brush falling feels like a before and after. Mine falls from my hand and splatters too.
Slowly, teasingly, Corbin runs his calloused finger across the paint on my body. I pant ludicrously loud. It feels too good.
“Good enough to bite,” he muses as he traces a circle near my breastbone.
“I don’t think the paint would taste good,” I say.
“Probably not, but this would.”
His lips come crashing down on mine, and I grab him, my fingers roping through his messy hair, tugging him close. He kisses me hard, a little ruthlessly, all teeth and heat and need.
My brain is buzzing, my body humming, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m keenly aware there’s a pretty mural inches from us, and I just don’t want to mess it up.
“The mural,” I whisper with concern.
He backs up, away from our work, scanning it to make sure we didn’t smear it. It’s safe. He spins me around and pushes me against the brass pole.
Is that a sign? “Do you want me to strip?” I ask in between hot, wet, deep kisses.
“Don’t tempt me,” he mutters, then returns to my mouth like a sniper.
He kisses ferociously, like he wants to consume me. And I think I want to be consumed. There’s been something restrained in the Corbin I’ve come to know in the last few weeks. He’s confident and cocky, sarcastic and witty, but he’s also controlled and precise.
This is another side to him.
Wild.
Untamed.
Ravenous.
He grabs my waist and moves me around the space, pushing me up against a wall—the one where the tearaway pants once hung. There’s no risk to the llama and the fox here.
He stares hotly at me, his chest rising and falling. “I told myself not to do this. Not to give in. I made myself a promise.”