Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 57139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Okay, Jon Snow. Keep the dragon asleep.
“Ezra!” I hissed.
Nothing.
“Ezra!” I kicked his foot.
He snorted awake. “Why are you hovering? If you’re sleepwalking, I swear—” His eyes cracked open, narrowing at me. “You know ghosts are my thing. I sent you the spreadsheet. To all your emails, including that Nike one you swore you only kept for Sephora coupons.”
“Focus!” I bent over him. “Be honest. Do you… like men and women? Because I’m fine if you do, I just have to know.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You woke me up for that?”
“Yes.” I nodded firmly. “I woke you up for that.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t you think you’d know by now?”
“You’ve never hit on me. Not once. I’ve never seen you hold hands, or kiss anyone. And yes, fine, you kiss like a god, whatever—but clearly you know how. So what gives? Do you have a secret life?”
He sighed dramatically. “Fine, you caught me. I have a secret family. Two kids. A few wives. It’s hard juggling their jealousy but honestly, the hardest part is the children—”
I smacked him in the head. “This isn’t Sister Wives, Ezra!”
He licked his lips slowly, eyes flicking to mine. “Well… there’s one way to prove it.”
I froze. “What?”
“Consent. Permission. Whatever you want to call it.” His voice dropped. “Do I have it?”
“Consent for—”
“To touch me.”
My mouth went dry. I stupidly reached for his shoulder.
“Not there,” he murmured, a ghost of a smile. “Cute, though.”
My hand slid lower, to his thigh.
“Closer.”
I gulped and inched higher.
“Warmer,” he rasped. “If I wasn’t into women, do you think I’d react this violently—” His hips shifted under my hand. “To you?”
Before I could think, he caught my wrist and pressed my palm over his erection.
I nearly choked. “Ezra—”
But he wasn’t pushing me away. His head tipped back, lashes low, hips rising slowly against my hand.
“What am I—” My voice cracked.
“Harder,” he grit out, teeth clenched.
And God help me—I obeyed.
It was surreal. An out-of-body experience I never wanted to end. He was hot, solid, too much and not enough all at once.
It ended too soon. His body jerked, his breath shattered, and then he collapsed back into the couch, sweat-damp hair falling into his eyes.
His gaze locked on mine, lazy and lethal. “Not gay.”
I jumped up so fast I nearly face-planted over the coffee table. “Right. Not gay. Nope. Good experiment. Great success.”
“Fantastic success,” he rasped. “Next time, bring a stronger hypothesis. Maybe it’ll be your turn. I do love to study.”
My thighs clenched traitorously. I bolted to my room, slammed the door, and stared at my reflection in the mirror.
“For science,” I whispered.
Total bullshit.
That wasn’t for science. That was for me.
For him.
For us.
What the hell was happening?
I woke up to the smell of coffee and the sound of someone humming off-key.
Ezra.
Of course he was humming like the poster child for “Nothing Happened Last Night” while I lay in bed replaying the out-of-body, not-for-science handjob that had ruined me forever.
I groaned into my pillow. “Maybe he’ll be gone.”
Spoiler: he was not gone.
When I finally dragged myself out, there he was in the kitchen, hair messy, hoodie on, sipping coffee like a human being instead of the reckless experiment subject he’d been six hours ago.
“Morning,” he said, like we hadn’t committed unspeakable acts of science on the couch.
I froze in the doorway. “Morning.”
He handed me a mug. “Coffee. Extra cream, two sugars. The usual.”
That—that—was what broke me. Not the kissing. Not the hand. Not the orgasm that definitely wasn’t mine but might as well have been. No. It was him remembering my coffee order and acting like nothing had happened.
“You’re awfully chipper,” I muttered.
He smirked over the rim of his mug. “Slept great.”
I glared. “Oh, did you?”
“Yeah,” he said casually. “Not sure why. Something about the night felt… productive.”
I nearly dumped my coffee on his head.
Before I could retort, my phone buzzed. And buzzed again. Then again, until it practically vibrated off the counter. Ezra’s phone joined in, buzzing in harmony like a duet of doom.
I picked mine up, already bracing. Notifications filled the screen—comments, shares, tags.
Vex and Harper FAKING IT?
Chemistry… or publicity stunt?
Caught fighting on their “date”
Leaked footage of THAT kiss
Oh God.
There we were, splashed all over social media: me shoving him, him pulling me in, our mouths colliding against the wall. Not staged. Not fake. Not for science.
I nearly dropped my phone. “They—they filmed it.”
Ezra leaned over, scrolling through his own notifications, his jaw tightening. “Of course they did. You saw the flash, but they were probably filming and snapping pictures at the same time.”
“This is bad.” My pulse was racing. “This is… really, really bad. What if they think it’s not real?”
He set his phone down and moved close, his hand bracing the counter near my hip. His voice was low, controlled. “Then we fix it.”
“How?” I asked.
His hazel eyes locked on mine, steady, certain. “By giving them something better to talk about.”