Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
His body was like a tuning fork for that shit.
Stopping at the head of the corridor, he looked past all the cultivated Adirondack crap. The female was standing under one of the recessed lights, and the planes and angles of her face were so blurry that her scent was what told him who she was. In response, his eyes became desperately restless as he tried to settle the pockets of focus on the whole when all he got were snapshots of the parts: Her eyes, her lips, her high cheeks, her gentle chin.
In the periphery, her white parka and black snow pants registered and were the kind of thing the protective side of him approved of.
He didn’t want her cold, ever.
“—hard on you.” She shrugged. “Just felt the need to check in.”
Shuli cleared his throat like there was a lump in it. “You’re such a female of worth.”
That’s when it happened. The male stretched out his arms and stepped up to her.
As L.W.’s vision abruptly sharpened, his body moved of its own volition, shooting into the open, his dagger hand going immediately to one of the steel weapons strapped, handles down, to his chest—
Bitty looked over Shuli’s shoulder in shock, and the instant she saw him and his aggression, all the warmth and compassion went out of her face. The mask that replaced it was something he had made. He had done that.
As he halted, Rhamp hissed, “Are you insane?”
Well, yeah. He was.
And the only way he could convince his hand to let go of his weapon’s hilt was to remind that hard grip that he was just making things worse. Proving he was even more unhinged. And wasn’t that a skill he’d excelled at.
Bitty stepped out of Shuli’s hold and pulled her puffer back into place. “Yeah. So.”
“Thanks for coming,” Shuli muttered. While he no doubt shot a glare in L.W.’s direction, not that he could see that aristocratic face clearly enough. “Oh, yeah, Mr. Cheerful’s still with us. You know, he just brightens up every room he walks into, doesn’t he.”
“Like an H-bomb,” Rhamp agreed.
Ignoring the peanut gallery, L.W. nodded at the female. “Good to see you.”
An acrid scent hit the airwaves, a sure sign she was pissed. “Mm-hmm. Well, I just wanted to come by because I was thinking about you all.”
“We’re okay,” Rhamp said firmly, as if he were drawing a line in the sand. “There’s no report that you need to file on our mentals.”
“Oh, this is not a professional visit or anything,” she said. “I mean, just because I work at Safe Place with—well, anyway. It’s as a friend. I came here… as a friend.”
“You’re welcome anytime.” Shuli motioned around like he was trying to sell the joint. “But I’m going to warn you.”
“About the food?” Rhamp interjected. “Because we have none?”
“Nah, Willhis is due back any minute from Hannaford’s Kingston. I’m just saying, chances are we’ll be out climbing the mountain and enjoying winter sports.”
“Have I mentioned how much I love your butler?” Rhamp put his palms together and victory-waved them at the ceiling in such exaggeration, even L.W. saw it. “Thank you, Lassiter.”
Shuli shouldered up one of the bags of weapons. “I told you he was fooding up the place for us—”
“Did you?” Rhamp picked up a duffle that rattled like it was full of metal. Because it was. “When?”
“Around noontime—”
“Oh, my bad. I was drunk.”
“Huh. So was I.” Shuli headed for the stairs that vaguely registered over on the left. “Maybe I thought you’d read my mind?”
“Maybe I did and forgot.”
Still chatting, the pair of them descended to the lower level, and as L.W. listened to their back-and-forth, he realized it was the kind of thing that he usually drowned out. Yet with Bitty a couple of yards away from him, he hung on the retreating words because it was easier than dealing with the awkward silence that slammed in between him and the female, solid as a stone wall.
Down below, a door closed, and he wondered whether the boys were giving him some privacy on purpose or if whatever room they were going into had a weighted panel that closed on its own.
L.W. refocused on the female, and braced himself for her to say something that tore him up. Something that was insightful and kind, that beat back the defensive bullshit that he put out to the world. And it was as he waited to hear her voice that he realized that what he liked best about her, even more than her eyes and her hair, her simple way of being beautiful, her soft smile…
Was the way she saw him. Really saw him.
And that was a pussy move in a lot of ways, and also shouldn’t have mattered. And he’d tried to tell himself, over and over again, that it didn’t.