Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 87536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“Well, assuming you want to stay in Star Lake, what if you give up your apartment and I buy a cabin here? And then we live here in the summer and in Arizona during football season.”
I blink, heart sprinting. “That sounds huge.”
“Yeah, it is.” He smiles proudly. “But it’s the first idea that doesn’t feel like punishment.”
“Hold up,” I say, palms sliding up his thigh to anchor. “You don’t have to buy property because you want to date me.” That’s bananas.
“You’re right, I don’t have to,” he agrees. “I want to. A cabin’s not a grand gesture—it’s a plan. Women love a plan, don’t they? And if things don’t work out, I’ll sell it.” He pulls me closer. “Babe, I can afford it. Do you know how much fucking money I have?”
No, I do not. I haven’t given money a single thought.
His words hit me sideways, almost ridiculous in their certainty.
How Much Money Does This Man Have?
“I’m not throwing away money, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says calmly. “I’m investing in us. And it gives Benny both—time with me, time in a town that doesn’t revolve around shopping and social status, that’s hot as fuck in the summer. A cabin where she can run around barefoot and jump in a lake and live in her swimsuit sounds like a fantastic childhood.”
I stare at him, heart pounding. “You really have thought this through.”
He laughs. “I had a lot to think about while I was waiting for you to show up. Babe, I can afford to make this possible. What I can’t afford is losing you because we were too scared to dream big.”
I search his face. “This sounds too good to be true,” I whisper.
“Trust me—it’s not. I’m selfish.” His eyes spark. “I want the life, the girl, the whole damn thing.”
A tidal wave of want washes over me; or is this gratitude? Relief?
“I want a life like that, too, but isn’t this a little too . . .”
Quick?
Crazy?
I mean, we haven’t even spent more than a few days together.
Talking about living together is wild. It’s something people do when they’re wildly in love . . .
“Layla. I’m as confused as you are about all this. If we say it out loud, it sounds so fucked up, doesn’t it?” He laughs. “Like—what are we going to tell our parents? ‘Hey, Mom, after not dating for nine years, I met someone and Surprise, she’s moving in’?”
I choke on a startled giggle. “My mother would freak.”
Will freak.
Because I want this.
“But here’s what’s even more insane: From the second you walked into my life, every part of me went, ‘Yes. Her.’ I don’t know if that’s a thing people admit without sounding deranged, but maybe love at first sight isn’t the dumbest myth I’ve ever heard even if I said I didn’t believe it.”
I bite down on my bottom lip to stop the ridiculous grin spreading across my face—Pinch Me, I’m Dreaming!
“Hold up. I’m about to say something crazier.”
“What?” I wait with bated breath.
“I’m bringing you home to meet my mom.”
He’s not saying he loves me, but the word still flares like a match in my chest. I’m on him before I can second-guess, fisting his shirt and dragging his mouth to mine like I’ll starve if I don’t taste him.
Hayes groans. “Fuck yeah—this is what I’m talkin’ about.”
He’s grinning against my lips when I swing a leg over and settle into his lap, knees bracketing his hips. His rough hands find my waist, slide up my ribs—claiming, careful, hungry.
Then he moves.
In one fluid shift he stands, scooping me up as if I weigh nothing. My gasp breaks into a laugh when my legs lock around his waist and his forearms steel around me.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, kissing me two strides to the bed, then laying me in the center. Hayes follows, a broad, warm gravity that parts my knees and steals the air from my lungs.
He braces above me and pauses—to have a long, hard look at me. Like he wants to memorize me in this moment before he devours me.
A brush of lips at the corner of my mouth. My chin. A soft bite to my bottom lip that sends sparks down my spine.
“Hi,” he whispers, stupidly sweet for a man wrecking me.
“Hi,” I breathe, already wrecked.
“I seriously fucking missed you.”
“I seriously fucking missed you too.” I laugh as he begins a war with the zipper pull of my jeans; I lift my hips and he drags them down, slow enough to make me crazy, fast enough to confirm he’s desperate.
He struggles when they won’t slide past my thighs and curses, then finally yanks them free and tosses them to the floor, hovers above me, still wearing all his clothes.
“Tell me you’re here.”
“I’m here because I choose you.” I cup his face so he sees it—the promise, the ache, the joy of it all. “You and Benny.”