Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Plus, if I have a meltdown again, Peach Lips will get upset. I should let her out of the backpack. She’s been in there long enough.
“Fine,” I huff.
He doesn’t move.
He’s so solid that he’s like the brick wall they slam cars into with those crash test dummies in them to ensure their safety ratings perform. I can’t go anywhere until he steps back.
He closes and locks the door after me, then walks around in the pitch black and switches on a lamp.
Yeah, solid dive territory, alright.
The walls are old wood panelboard. There’s a tube TV on a beat-up dresser, a queen-sized bed that’s saggy, frightening stains on the brown carpet, and a nightstand that’s missing a big chunk out of the top.
Thorn has nothing but a backpack set on top of it that I can see.
It’s a very odd, juvenile relief when I see the bed is perfectly made, its faded nineties-inspired brown, purple, and pink streaked quilt crisply made up. Does this guy not sleep? There’s not even a chair in here. Was he standing? Half-naked? Maybe he tried lying down, and his nuts hurt because he got the sacking of a lifetime, and then when I banged on the door, he straightened the covers so they didn’t even have a body indent before he answered? That’s absurd, I know.
I’m just so glad the sheets aren’t exposed, rumpled, sweaty, and smelling like manly scents and musk. Citrus, lemons, and sandalwood. Even seeing the bed and this man who looks more like a mythical god than an actual man, with stacked muscles on stacked muscles, I imagine him in there. On his back. With those sweats stripped away. It would hurt to even straddle someone that broad. The delicious kind of burning hurt. I’ve never had cheerleader flexibility.
Holy fucking hairballs.
My distraught, overwrought brain is melting down. Those thoughts are just proof of it because normally, I’d take a good wheel of cheese over the company of any person, let alone sex with a man I’m not interested in. Not in my head, heart, or any other bits.
I swipe my damp palms on the dress I haven’t taken off. I was just getting ready for bed on the bus when the first email came in. I panicked and tried to figure out how to do damage control when I got the second. It went on like that for the past few hours. After that, I just sat there crying silent tears until my eyes hurt so badly that I could barely force them open.
“Sit there.” Thorn points at the edge of the bed. “Take Peach Lips out of the backpack and get her comfortable. Let me read those emails, and you wait while I make some calls.”
I want to explode at the pompous, unfeeling way he’s ordering me around, but I don’t. Instead, I swallow back my anger, knowing it’s irrational. I can’t get mad at him for fixing this in his gruff, brusque way when all I want is to be taken care of.
So I do what he says.
All of it.
About an hour, several phone calls, and far too many Neanderthal-style grunts later, Thorn slams his phone thunderously into his sweats. The motion causes them to ride just a little bit lower, exposing even more olive-skinned, bronzed flesh.
I gulp and look down at my lap, where Peach Lips finally curled up. She sniffed the bed for a while before deciding my lap was the safest and cleanest bet.
“You’re going to have to stand down and lay low. Let it all blow over. In a few months, no one will remember any of this.”
“What?” I whisper-shout so I don’t disturb the slumbering cat ball of devastating cuteness. “I can’t just…just…let it all blow over.” That just shows how little he cares. “Would you let your merger thing blow over?”
A shadow passes over his face. “We’re not talking about me.”
“Yes. Yes, we freaking are! I’m losing followers because of you. You should see what people are saying! I’ve been banned from shows. Barred from my own life. In a few months, no one will even care about me or Peach Lips at all if we just disappear.”
He gives his head a barely perceptible shake. “That’s not true. You let my team handle it. We’ll fix this. All of this. But that includes giving them control over your socials and letting them do this their way. You need to take a media break. You need a break from all this. We’ll get it sorted out. I promise.”
I’m tough. I am. But my eyes are doing more than just prickling. My nose aches, my chest is going to implode, and the ugliest of ugly crying is about to commence. “This is my life,” I rasp with what little voice I can get past the giant lump in my throat. “It was a good thing, and now it’s ruined.”