Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“From my family reunion,” he explained with a slight smile. “Annual Marian madness in Montana. Fair warning—it might smell like mountain air and nostalgia.”
I laughed. “My favorite.” I shucked my shirt off and quickly donned his, trying not to see the gesture as something more intimate than it was—an offering of something personal, something that had touched his skin.
The shirt fit better than I’d expected, stretching over the extra inches in my bulkier frame.
“Well,” I said with a smile of thanks, clutching my flannel in my hand and feeling awkward again. “Guess I’ll be going. Nice meeting you, Tommy Marian.”
I was tempted to stick around and talk to him a little longer. But he’d already put the brakes on anything more than friends, and I hadn’t come to Hawaii to make friends with a straight doctor from New York. Besides, I already had the world’s stupidest crush on the man, and that was more than I could handle.
After returning to my room, I took a long, hot shower and indulged in a very short session with my hand before falling into bed naked. Even then, sleep eluded me for a long time. And when I did finally fall asleep, images of a smiling Tommy Marian followed me into my dreams all night long.
Little did I know that particular affliction would end up lasting my entire life.
2
TOMMY
My heart thudded painfully as I watched Foster Blake walk away from my hotel room.
The dim lights in the outdoor passageway threw shadows across his shoulders, stretched wide across the soft cotton of the T-shirt I’d given him. His ruined flannel hung from one hand as he strode away.
I wanted to call him back. My entire body vibrated with the need to shout his name, to beg him to stay for just a little longer.
To talk to me just a bit more about his life in Wyoming. About search and rescue. About his snarky little sister and his meddling mom.
To keep the big, handsome man in my orbit a few more minutes because when he was with me, it was hard to think of anything we’d done together as the life-altering calamity I knew it was.
I’d never kissed a man before tonight. Not like that. Hell, I’d never kissed a woman like that before. Not in the kind of way that took charge, that dominated…
That owned me completely.
Breath sawed in and out of my lungs as I returned into the room and closed the door behind me. “Fuck,” I whimpered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I was in so much trouble. So. Fucking. Much. Trouble.
It hadn’t just been the kiss that had taken me by surprise or the fact that Foster was a guy when I’d honestly figured I was a hundred percent straight.
It was that I’d wanted to say yes when he’d asked me back to his room. Wanted to go anywhere with him, just to stay close to him and find out what else he had to say.
And then when he’d unbuttoned his stained shirt to slip on the tee I’d given him… well, I’d found my gaze lingering on him longer than it should have.
Medical school had prepared me to understand the human body as a collection of systems working in harmony, and years of examining bodies had made it commonplace. But there was nothing clinical about the way I’d noticed his shoulders—broad and strong and gorgeous—as he’d pulled my T-shirt over his head. And nothing in my studies had prepared me to have my own pulse quicken and my mouth go dry as I’d watched the play of muscles in his arms, mentally tracing the path of veins visible beneath his skin.
I’d recognized these symptoms all too well. The rush of chemicals that turned rational thought sideways, the slight elevation in body temperature, the focus that narrowed to one person in a crowded room.
I wanted Foster Blake. And knowing the biological basis for attraction didn’t make it any less powerful.
I squeezed my eyes closed. “This is normal. Cold feet. Jitters.”
But it was not normal. Not for me. And not with another man.
So, I did the only thing I could think of when faced with something this potentially life-changing. I grabbed my key and ran down the hall in the opposite direction from the one Foster had taken.
My cousin Ella answered her door on the third knock, barefoot and wearing pajamas festooned with tiny rubber ducks. Dark strands had escaped her messy topknot to wave around her face, probably because she’d been tugging at them while working on her project.
“Bro, you suck at relaxing—” she began. But when she saw my face, her eyes widened. “Tommy? Are you alright?”
“Not really, no.” I walked into her room without waiting for an invitation, not that she’d expect me to. “I did something, Ella.” My voice sounded thready and panicked to my own ears.