Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
“Men suck!” Jet threw in his two cents too.
She cursed.
I ignored her and raided the fridge. She’d bought steaks, the good potato salad from the Publix deli in Naples—and that was clue enough. She’d gone all the way to Naples to buy dinner. Jesus H on a fuckstick; I hadn’t tried to kiss up to my mother that much since the day I’d had to tell her—
Horror shot through me, and I spun around to find Marina on the other side of the bar, watching me with a wary expression.
She forced a smile.
“No,” I told her. Just flat-out no. “Don’t say it.”
“Men suck!” Jet said it.
Marina wasn’t canceling Christmas. She was canceling my mental health.
It was one thing to welcome another one of her fucking boyfriends into my house. I loved my daughter—she was goddamn brilliant and had a bright future ahead of her once she got her master’s in conservation biology, but the girl wouldn’t know a good guy if he smacked—okay, no smacking. But bottom line, she couldn’t pick a nice boyfriend from a lineup. She had the worst damn taste in men. I wasn’t even counting the mistakes she’d brought home in high school.
If they weren’t using her to get better grades—or for something much worse, her body—they were bottom-feeders without ambition. Or a job, for that matter. I didn’t care if they bagged groceries at Publix; I came from a modest background and had worked my ass off doing everything from gardening and removing iguanas to working night shifts at Burger King while I got through school. A job was a job. But he had to fucking work.
I wasn’t accepting another guy who couldn’t pay his own bills, so help me God.
Scratch that. I’d pay the guy’s bills myself if Marina didn’t tell me right now that she was pregnant.
Jet was right. Men sucked.
“Surprise,” she murmured uncertainly. “You’re gonna be a grandpa.”
Nope.
December 27
Walker McKenna
If I closed my eyes and clung to the dream, I could still feel him in my arms. I could still smell him, taste him, see him, and hear him.
“Sir, I’ve been thinking. I want to call you Master. I think I’m ready.”
I grinned sleepily and threw the covers over us, and then I peppered his face and neck with kisses. “It’s been a week, boy… I take that power exchange very seriously.”
“So do I,” he argued. “I feel it in my heart, you know. We’re freaking soul mates or something.”
I blew out a breath at the harsh twinge I felt in my chest, and I dragged myself out of bed.
I couldn’t do this any longer.
But I’d known that for a while. I’d uprooted myself slowly from Boston. To begin with, I hadn’t really settled down. I’d rented instead of owned a place. I’d never put pictures on the walls. I’d started filling moving boxes…
Last but not least, I was seeing my boss for lunch today.
I checked my phone, noticing a text from Dean.
You can’t ignore me forever, little brother.
I sure as fuck could.
Soon as I got back to DC, I was putting my condo on the market. Another thing I hadn’t been able to get rid of when I’d left. I’d rented it out instead, with hopes I’d reconcile with Macklin and move back home one day. But I didn’t want to risk running into Dean in the hall.
“I hate fighting with you,” I whispered.
Macklin sniffled and snuck closer to me. “Me too.”
For a moment, I just held him and breathed him in. What we needed more of was this right here. Just the two of us, away from work, away from other people. We were happy on the boat. With the sun shining down on the sunbed, the calm waves lulling us into a dream state.
“Sometimes I worry I love you too much,” I admitted. And it hurt. “I worry that I’m suffocatin’ you.”
He had my heart in a fucking vise.
“I just wish I could clone myself,” he croaked. “I need more hours in the day.”
I swallowed hard and shook the memory. We’d come up here with the boat once. Boston was a beautiful city with a lot to see from the water. Now, every time I drove across one of the bridges, I pictured us here. His boyish, mischievous grins. All the seafood he’d prepared for us. How we’d bundled up with blankets to watch the fireworks.
The boat had become our only vanilla escape, where we’d tended to each other’s wounds. In kink, we’d been… Christ. A perfect match. Everything we’d done wrong in our romantic relationship, we’d done right in our kink dynamic. Honesty, meeting each other’s needs, evolving with baby steps, proper communication, unhurriedly working toward our goals of being more open.
For a while, I’d viewed us the same way I viewed my boat. I’d restored an old fishing boat that had plenty of cracks and dents, but since Macklin had entered my life, we’d fixed her up together. Every season before it was time to return her to the water, we’d worked on her as a wonderful team. He had turned the cabin below into a second home. I had done my best to bring aboard a pinch of luxury, replacing the old fishing equipment with a sunbed and a seating area with barbecue amenities. I’d painted her, I’d polished her, I’d aimed to keep her as a haven for us.