TAMING HOLLYWOOD'S BADDEST BO- Max Monroe Page 0,47
is doing a damn good job of hiding it.
“Oh, wow, look at the view,” Billie says her one-thousandth sentence of the day, and I fight the urge to laugh.
I don’t think her mouth has stayed shut for a single second since we started our hike.
From the instant our boots hit the dirt, Billie has been rambling about anything and everything—nonstop fucking chatter.
Honestly, it has to be some sort of world record.
This is an awkward, “I need to fill the silence with whatever word-vomit shoots out of my mouth” kind of ramble, and I’ve never seen anyone do it better than her.
“What kind of trees are those?” she asks and points toward one of what has to be hundreds of trees we’ve already seen since we left my house a few days ago.
“Pine trees.”
“Pine trees? Really?” She scrunches up her nose. “I would’ve never guessed. And what about those trees?”
I follow her finger to see…the same tree, but bigger.
“Still pine trees.”
“Lots of pine out here, huh?” she questions, but I guess it’s more rhetorical than anything else because she follows it up with another. “The fresh air is nice, isn’t it?”
Fresh air. Fucking pine trees.
What else is she going to talk about? The damn rocks?
As cute as one part of me wants me to think it is, fucking spare me.
Abruptly, I stop my momentum, and Billie’s chest runs directly into my backpack and an oof! escapes her lungs.
“What the hell?” she questions, and I turn around to meet her eyes.
“I’d love to ask you the same question.”
She narrows the grassy peak of green I get every time I look at her and scoffs. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve been rambling about nonsense since we took our first fucking steps this morning,” I comment. “Four hours of nonstop fucking talking. I can’t take it anymore. So, let’s get this out of the way. What’s really on your mind, princess?”
She shrugs and stares down at her boots. “I’m a chatty girl.”
I reach out and put my fingers beneath her chin and lift her gaze to mine again.
“Horseshit,” I challenge. “This has nothing to do with having a chat and everything to do with you crawling into my tent last night and trying to seduce me.”
“What!” she shouts, and her voice booms off the trees. Bailey barks several times in response, and if I hadn’t been prepared for the reaction, I would have smiled.
I raise a defiant eyebrow, and she gears up to let me have it. Thankfully, though, she drops her volume to a whisper-yell. “I was not trying to seduce you! And like you should talk. You’re the one who had a freaking…” She trails off, and I can’t stop myself from pushing her to say it.
“I had a what?”
She shakes her head, and I shrug.
“What did I have, princess?”
“A stupid freaking boner!” She shoves both her hands into my chest, and I have to swallow back my laughter. “This morning! While I was sleeping next to you!”
“Should I remind you that you chose to sleep inside my sleeping bag last night?”
“Because I was too cold!” she huffs and blows a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Well, princess, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but men have dicks. And when we sleep, sometimes they get hard. It happens.”
“I know that.” She rolls her eyes heavenward. “I’m not a child.”
“Yet, you’re still acting like I’ve scandalized you.”
“Ugh.” She groans and shoves past me, her strides the longest I’ve ever seen them, and I smile.
If I’d known this little argument would get her to move so fast, I would have had it out hours ago.
Luca
There is nothing colder than a woman’s cold shoulder. The science of my current situation has concluded this as fact ten times over.
Billie has gone from nonstop chatter to complete silence.
Her body has vibrated with irritation since we had it out on the trail, and now, after three more hours of hiking and one hour of setting up camp for the night, I’d be surprised if she’s said all of ten words.
Tonight’s location is near one of my favorite freshwater ponds, filled with enough trout and bass to feed an army. And since I’ve grown tired of corn and beans, I snagged two trout on a fishing line, prepped them for cooking, and put them over the fire.
“Hungry?” I ask, and Billie just shrugs.
Fucking shrugs.
Today, we put in eleven miles of hiking, and all I’ve seen her eat is a small