Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 153946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
He shared embarrassing boot camp stories. He discussed the lengths he’d gone to in wooing his wife, including a very unfortunate flash mob of men in suits of armor in the middle of the French Quarter, which I didn’t believe until he showed me the video he’d saved to his phone. The way he described the over-the-top and often obscure themes Gene had chosen for each Lemons race through the years, along with his insistence on full costumes and scripts, had me laughing so hard my stomach muscles hurt. The man simply hadn’t stopped talking. For hours.
And then he fell asleep.
It was the oddest thing—he’d wrapped up yet another humorous anecdote, gotten up from the floor with a few loud pops and groans, laid his sleeping bag on the couch and passed out beside a very confused-looking Merlin.
He was snoring less than ten seconds later, leaving Wade and me alone without a buffer.
Of course Wade chose that moment to start an argument.
“You take the bed,” he whispered, immediately getting to his feet and holding out a hand to help me up. “I’ll sleep on the rug out here.”
“It’s your bed according to the lease,” I whispered back, trying to subtly slap the thigh that had gone numb from hours on the floor. “I’ll sleep out here.”
“You own the bed, and I’m a gentleman.”
“You’re an older gentleman and you might throw your back out.”
Wade sent me a disgruntled look. “You could have gone all night without saying that.”
“I apologize. I got carried away. I’m sure you could sleep on a bed of nails and wake up rested.”
“Take the bed, Gus,” he said loud enough that we both glanced self-consciously at the couch for a moment to make sure Lucy was still out cold.
I crossed my arms. “Retta rules are in play, buddy. It’s you or it’s no one and we suffer together.”
He scowled at that, but after a moment of staring me down, he sighed. “We’ll suffer together then. We’re both mature adults here. We can share the bed,” he finished grimly.
Those five simple words blew the rules and all my arguments out the window. I mean, come on. How often was a person presented with this scenario in real life? With someone they were actually attracted to?
“Fine,” I said, a little too quickly, forcing me to follow up with an, “If we have to.”
I’d not only read scenes like this in romances, I’d also written them. The only-one-bed scenario crossed all genres and was where the real magic happened. In one of my books, the bed was in an abandoned cottage, warded by spells to hide them from the enemies hunting my heroine. It worked like a charm for that fictional couple.
For the two of us, on the other hand? Not so much.
First, Wade left the bedroom door open. Because apparently cool air was infinitely preferable to privacy which…I couldn’t argue with, no matter how much I wanted to. After we took turns in the bathroom with an electric lantern and that door firmly closed, we settled onto the world’s smallest queen-size mattress so gingerly you’d think it was rigged with explosives.
Wade kept one foot on the floor like a man in a 50s sitcom, while I clung to my side of the bed, trying to ignore the furnace levels of heat his body was radiating and the faint scent of chlorine on skin that brought up memories of our watery embrace.
We lay there fully clothed, fully awake—and, in my case, full of pent-up sexual desire, frayed nerves and unanswered questions—listening to a chorus of canine and human snoring for what felt like hours.
When I couldn’t take the fraught silence anymore, I whispered, “This bed is too small for me and way too hard. How do you stand it?”
“Biofreeze patches and Advil.”
I smiled before I realized… “You’re not joking?”
“I planned to haggle for the nice king-size mattress I have in storage for next month’s lease agreement.”
“You have a bed in storage? Good lord, Wade, bring it over. You can put this one in the garage for now.” Or maybe we’d burn it. That’s how uncomfortable it was.
He hesitated before saying, “Are you sure? I didn’t want to ask you to change anything.”
I understood why, and I was grateful. “It won’t be a problem. I’ve been feeling guilty about it all week, and now I know exactly why. Knowing you were comfortable would be a favor to me.”
“Thanks.” Less than a minute later, he spoke again. “On the subject of favors, how comfortable are you with bookkeeping software?”
This could only happen to me.
A gorgeous man pressed up against me was saying, “Let’s share a bed after sort-of making out in the pool. And while we’re there, what are your thoughts on bookkeeping?”
Who said the male of the species wasn’t completely confusing? Because those people were liars.