Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 105756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Bend me over the bonnet and what, Jonathan?
Once I was seated, he closed the door then strode around to the other side. Settling into the driver’s seat, he turned on the engine, and the car purred to life. Okay, I could kind of see what all the fuss was about. Then my attention fell on Jonathan as he glanced over his shoulder, hands deftly turning the steering wheel as he reversed out of the spot, and I had trouble focusing because this was my first time seeing him drive.
Let’s just say I was affected.
“Okay, now I get why you hired Ben,” I said as he manoeuvred the car out of its spot.
“Ben?”
“You obviously need a driver since the sight of you behind the wheel would send women into fainting fits and spontaneous orgasms all across the country. The hospitals would be overrun.” His loud answering chuckle had my heart pounding away in my chest. I loved the sound of his laughter, especially when I was the one to solicit it. I was pretty much obsessed with everything about him. So much so that I felt myself falling deeper into whatever intense, stomach whirling feelings I’d developed for him. It was only as we got on the road and headed out of the city that the realisation fully dawned on me.
I was in love with Jonathan. Completely and totally. We’d only been sleeping together for a couple weeks, and I’d gone and fallen head over heels in love. Now I just had to figure out if it was better to keep this news to myself until I had an idea of how he felt in return or simply tell him and try not to fixate too much on the possible outcome.
Well, we’d be spending the next two days together, so there was no rush to decide.
23.
Jonathan
I was in love with her.
As soon as she started ribbing me about the car, I knew it. Most people wore on my patience on the best of days, but with Ada, it was never like that. Even when she was being annoying, I was pathetically besotted, wishing she’d tease me more. I lapped up any kind of attention from her like a desperate fool.
I became certain of my feelings when we stopped off at a viewpoint near a lake midway through the journey. Ada sat down on a bench overlooking the water and began braiding her long hair. My gaze was glued to her. I couldn’t look away.
When she walked into my office that first time, I had no idea what she’d come to mean to me, but gazing at her now, it felt like I’d dreamt her into existence. She was beautiful, kind, hardworking, honest, insightful, everything I could ever ask for in a woman. I felt this odd sense that my mother had sent her to me. That she’d chosen her, and us meeting was her parting gift. Bittersweet grief rumbled through me at the thought. How was it possible to be so happy yet so full of melancholy at the same time?
“Hey, are you okay?” Ada asked, her hair in a neatly finished braid over her shoulder as she twisted to look at me.
“Yeah, just … you’re so fucking beautiful, do you know that?”
Her cheeks pinked, her expression modest as she stood and came to press her lips to my cheek. “Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself.” She pulled back to study me. “What’s going on? Why do you look so overcome?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the view. Maybe it’s just you.” I fell quiet as I trailed my hand down her braid before fiddling with the end. “Life is better when you’re around.”
Her eyelids fluttered, her mouth opening, but no words came out. Finally, she cast her gaze down, seeming a little bashful when she replied, “I feel the same.”
Pulling her close, I kissed her deeply, her lips soft where mine were searching. I felt it when her arousal stirred, the way she clung to my jacket and squirmed against me. “We really,” she began between kisses, “should get back on”—another pause as I kissed her neck—“the road.”
Smiling against her pounding pulse, I withdrew and took her hand in mine before leading her back to the car. We listened to music the rest of the drive. The wedding was being held at The Balfe Hotel in Kinsale. The groom, Rhys, was head of security for the hotel’s Dublin operations, and Maggie’s husband, also the groom’s cousin and best man, worked at one of the Dublin hotels as part of his security team. I’d heard great things about the new location, and it supposedly had amazing views over the river Bandon.
“It looks incredible,” Ada said as we entered the building. She peered all about taking in the stylish luxury. I knew that Rhys’s best friend, Derek, had played a hand in the construction and opening of the hotel, but his father, Padraig Balfe, was the primary owner.