Chapter Sixteen
Jillian
While Dean said that I was making huge strides in my writing and reading, the workload was a lot. Not only did I have to do my regular work and gather food from the forest at night, but now I had to carve out time to read and write.
It was enough to give a girl a headache.
I’d kept myself busy most of the night.
Plus, I’d hidden the damned whiteboard. You can’t practice if your materials are missing.
We finished off our dinner and he gushed over my berry cobbler which was a little overcooked, since I hadn’t done much baking in a hearth before but for some reason wanted to make something special.
Have you kissed him yet?
Magda’s words reverberated in my head.
“Want to read now or practice writing?” I shook my head and sat down, pretending to rub my aching feet which weren’t really aching. Dean had the best intentions, but if I had to look at that whiteboard today, I was going to scream. Not really scream but mentally scream and maybe beat my fists on something. That was about as frustrated as I could get.
“No? Oh, okay. I thought you were enjoying it.”
I bit down on my bottom lip. Crap. In all my whining, I hadn’t thought that one night off would hurt his feelings. Maybe I could learn and not write that night. The thing was, I couldn’t really tell him because that would require the whiteboard. Getting the whiteboard would give away the fact that I’d hidden it.
Yeah, I’d painted myself into a corner.
Not wanting to disappoint him but also not wanting to write, I walked up to the bookshelf and grabbed the first paperback I saw. A tattered old thing that smelled of musty pages and dust.
I whirled around and gave it to Dean. “What? You want to read this?”
Shaking my head and pointing to him, I hoped to the gods he got the point.
“You want me to read this?”
Shit. Maybe I needed to get the whiteboard out after all. So I did the only thing I could think of—pointing to the book—then to his mouth—then back to my ears. Come on, dude, get the point. I tapped my foot and nearly broke out in a sweat just thinking about it.
“Read this book to you? Yeah, I could do that. Come sit by me so you can look at the words while I read.”
My shoulders slumped with relief. He sat on the sofa, a worn thing that probably should’ve been thrown out long ago, and I cringed. A man like that, someone as kind and warm as him should be sitting on a comfortable couch made of...well, not that fabric. He was out of place, like a diamond in a dumpster.
He patted the seat next to him and I sat but stayed on the edge of the sofa. This was as near as I’d allowed since that night that I’d discovered that kissing this man had become an obsession.
And now I didn’t know how to act around him.
“I’m not going to bite, Jillian. Besides, how are you going to see the words from that far away?”
It wasn’t him I was afraid of. It was me, and yeah, biting was on the menu when it came to Dean.
I nodded and scooted closer but still held my breath. He was so near. His deep, woodsy scent infiltrated my senses and, along with the warmth coming from the fire, made me feel more and more at ease with every passing second.
He cleared his throat as I looked over the page. There were so many words packed onto the tiny pages.
“It was all he could take not to ravish her right there,” Dean started and then chuckled. “Don’t make that face. You’re the one who picked this book out. Besides, the way it’s making you blush is worth it.”
I put my hands to my cheeks and felt the heat and it wasn’t from the fire.
“His eyes darted to her across the room more than once, the tightness in his chest and the sound of his beating heart almost more than he could bear. Anthony wasn’t the type to woo a woman. He took what he wanted, when he wanted and Caroline was just what he was craving.”
I was sure he was still reading. His lips were moving and I heard some sound coming out of his mouth, but what he said next, I couldn’t tell. My mind was floating in a thousand different places and yet, all of their endings seemed to be on Dean.