Burned (Hate at First Flight #2) ✔️

35. Hushed Conversations

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XOXO,

LOSALINI

My heart was faster and with more ferocity than the fastest cheetah alive.

Two factors were to be blamed. One, Douglas was much closer than I anticipated, wearing basically nothing except for the bedspread covering his lower half and he was watching me calmly like a child who'd seen the snow for the first time. And two, even though he was basically reciting along to the line carved by F. Scott Fitzgerald, those words would make even a nun's heart race with elation.

We didn't move or talk for some time. Heck, the UN could've solved the world's famine problems in the time it took for us to respond. Not true, maybe, but it was just too awkward for far too long.

After what felt like forever, Douglas's eyes drifted to the first edition book in my hands and then he moved to take it out of it. Still without saying anything, he placed on top of the newspaper on the table beside his bed and sat up properly, his abdominal muscles flexing as he shifted.

Then slowly, my body still tensed and waiting for a flood of anger to land on me, Douglas ran a hand through his hair and left behind a messy yet somehow sexy do. He cleared his throat before he asked, "Quincy sent you, I take it, to wake me up?"

I dared not say a word. Half worried that as soon as I said something, he would burst out.

"Krys...." Douglas chuckled softly as if he found my tensed figure amusing. "Quincy sent you up here, right?"

I decided that if I didn't answer him in any way things would only get worse, so I nodded.

"And you were supposed to wake me up, right?"

I nodded again.

"And yet you opted to read my mom's first edition copy of The Great Gatsby," his eyes drifted to the book on the table before he looked back at me, "...instead of waking me up?"

"Quincy got angry at me for insinuating you'd be watching porn or something and he sent me up here. I called for you, you didn't answer me so I walked in and... it was just there- and I thought- I just wanted to see what it was.... I thought you'd be reading Playboy...I just... I'm sorry," I tried in vain to stop myself but already Douglas was in small feats of laughter.

"Douglas!" I tried to stop him but he continued laughing even more harder than before. "It's really not that funny."

He finally stopped even to form actual words. "It kind of is. You looked like I was going to bite your head off." He started laughing again, before he stopped abruptly. "Wait, you thought, I was reading Playboy?"

I nodded slowly as if I was confessing to a murder.

He arched a brow, a smirk forming. "And how did you come to this conclusion that I was reading that type of reading material?"

"I just thought..."

He nodded as he got up off the bed, the bedspread that covered him started to fall off and without meaning to I turned my head away, just in case he wasn't wearing anything underneath and was someone who liked to go commando when he slept.

I focused on the poster of the surfer that was on his wall, the memories from the surfing lesson the other day he had given me came to mind. I couldn't deny that I had more fun than I had expected and that had made me rethink Douglas. Maybe he was always bad at first impressions.

A loud laugh from Douglas echoed in the room, drawing my attention back to him yet maintaining my gaze away from him.

“You are really much more innocent that I thought you were,” he chuckled again. I could sense him standing beside me now. “Most girls would be dying to see me naked and yet you turn away.”