Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26659 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 133(@200wpm)___ 107(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26659 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 133(@200wpm)___ 107(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
Which made me feel even guiltier about what I was withholding from him and made me more desperate to fill him in on the truth.
Burying his head in the side of my neck, he kept his lips against it as he asked, “Hey, baby. How was your day?”
“Busy as always. How about you?”
He’d outlined what he did on a day-to-day basis for his club, and it was a whole lot more than I’d expected. I’d imagined it being just night work and basically watching over the people who managed the place for him, but it was so much more than that. I was pretty sure he should be there every night, but in the time I’d known him, he’d only done that a couple of nights a week. When I’d raised it with him, he’d pointed out that he had people who were paid to do the jobs for him, and after five years, he was finally letting them do it.
“Same shit, different day. You making Jambalaya?” The answer was vague, but it was the exhaustion in his voice that worried me the most.
Turning to look up at him over my shoulder as I put the lid on the machine, I frowned when I saw the expression on his face. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”
One corner of his mouth kicked up in a smile. “Always the nurse.” Gently running his nose down the side of mine, he murmured, “I’m not sick, just tired from everything I had to do today.” Pulling back and looking pointedly at the Crock-Pot, he repeated, “Now, is that Jambalaya?”
“Yeah. I figured today would be a good day for comfort food. Don’t worry, I didn’t forget the extra Andouille sausage.”
“That’s what makes it so good, so I’m glad about that. How was your day?”
I can’t say I’d ever had this type of relationship with anyone before. Sure, I’d deliberately held myself back whenever I was in one, but it was easy to share with Joshua… ish.
“Busy. People getting sick, some people healing, and hoping that others make it through.”
Pulling away from me, he crossed over to the fridge to get our drinks. “I’ll bet they felt like they’d hit the jackpot having you as their nurse.”
Hitting the timer and start, I snorted as I left it to do its thing and went to sit in the living room. Once he had a beer for himself and a glass of wine for me, Joshua joined me, pulling me into his side on the sofa. These were the things I hadn’t taken for granted since we’d felt comfortable enough with each other to do them. It might have taken three and a half months for us to have sex, but it’d only taken ten days for this part to happen.
It might not seem like a major part of a relationship to some, but I loved every second of it. I also couldn’t stand the thought of it ending once I told him about my mom, which was a possibility.
Balling my hands into fists to hide the shaking, I asked quietly, “Are you free this weekend?”
His fingers had been combing through the strands of my damp hair, but they stopped after I asked the question and the muscles under my side tensed slightly. “Of course. I assumed we’d spend it together like we normally do. Maybe go out for a meal or do something together? Why?”
“There’s—” I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. “There’s something I want to show you.”
The tips of the fingers of his free hand tilted my face up so he could see it, meaning I had to draw on everything I had in me to look relaxed when it felt like I’d just drank a gallon of the most potent energy drink on the market.
I figured it’d worked when he shrugged. “Okay. Whatever you want to do, we’ll do. After it, though, I want to take you out for a meal. You’re always cooking for me, and because I can’t cook for shit, I want to do this to give you a break.”
He wasn’t wrong. On our fifth date, he’d offered to make me beef stroganoff. What he’d served looked like something a C-difficile patient would produce that’d been mixed with gelatin. That might be graphic, but it was as close to the best description that I could get.
Relaxing back into him, I smiled at the memory as I whispered, “I’d love that.”
“Why don’t we stay at my place, too? It’s not as peaceful as yours, but we’ll have more restaurants to choose from if we’re in the city.”
“I’ll pack a bag.”
It all seemed so simple. But was it really?
The noises coming out of me were almost embarrassing, but as he licked and sucked on my clit, it was virtually impossible to hold them back. I still tried, though, not wanting my elderly neighbors to hear me and then be unable to ever make eye contact with them again.