Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
“Your dad’s best friend. Why wouldn’t I trust you?”
She says it almost aggressively, and I know what point she’s making. She’s letting me know she can see right through this bullshit.
We’re both avoiding it, but she’s just thrown the first projectile, the first hint.
I was between her legs, my face pressed against her sopping slit, and we were speaking like….
“Nothing happened,” Lauren says, her voice trembling.
“Give me your car keys.” I stick my hand out. “I’ll go get the table.”
She’s trying to bring it out into the open.
I desperately want to, but it would unleash everything I’m barely holding back.
With a sigh, she tosses me her keys.
I catch them, our gazes locked on each other every single second. It’s like we’re talking silently, wordlessly waging war as she sticks her lips out.
She’s barely holding it back too.
Why did I arrange this? What sort of masochistic shit is this?
It’s torture, being so close but having to keep it all buried.
“I won’t be long,” I tell her, striding for the hallway. “Make yourself at home.”
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Lauren
I drop heavily onto the couch, wondering what sort of madness took hold of me just now. I didn’t have to mention Dad, didn’t have to reference what Silas said to me.
Nothing happened.
But it was like the tension was twisting through me, the memories of his massive manhood, his intense, obsessed eyes, and his mouth pressed against me.
I thought I could control it, but as soon as I stepped in here, I imagined all the ways a woman could bring life to his apartment. The artistic touches. The flourishes.
Not a woman.
Only me.
Buster trots across the living room to the kitchen.
It’s all open plan, wide and modern, with tall ceilings.
Buster sits in front of a drawer and barks up at it.
“Come on, boy,” I say.
He barks again, wagging his tail so fast his whole butt is wiggling from side to side. Despite the awkward energy in the air, I laugh, rising to my feet.
“Are you trying to get a treat while your daddy is distracted?”
He grins, wagging his tail even faster.
I wonder if this is okay, but surely if Buster knows which drawer to bark at, he knows what treats he likes. And anything’s better than sitting, thinking, and dreading what happens when Silas returns.
Opening the drawer, I find a bag of treats. I take it out and feed a couple to Buster. He snaps them from the air happily.
When I turn to replace the bag, I see a piece of paper, half folded like it was stuffed in there quickly.
Vanessa Vanessa Vanessa…
The woman’s name is written on it over and over, the way I once wrote Silas’ name, except I enclosed his in a heart.
This is simple raw passion, and her name scrawled like it was the only way he could feel close to her, his only method to experience a pale version of their love again.
I slam the drawer shut when I hear him walking up the hallway.
He finds me at the drawer. Standing tall with the folded table casually held under one huge arm, he looks piercingly at me, his body looking taut in his T-shirt and shorts.
“Everything okay?”
“Buster wanted a treat,” I say.
He smirks, but there’s something in his eyes like he suspects. “He knows who’s kind enough to give him one.”
“Are you ready to get started?” I ask, walking from the kitchen, trying not to think about the handwriting, the urgency, her name.
Maybe that’s why he finds dating so difficult.
He found his one true love, but something happened…something which causes him to act out sexually with women he doesn’t know, women like me, a procession, none of whom are good enough because they’re not called Vanessa.
“Sure,” he says, looking closely at me as though he can see the frantic flow of my thoughts.
“Let me get my gear ready,” I say. “And then we’ll get you on the table.”
I can’t afford to think about her name, not with what’s ahead of me.
Silas, shirtless, lying beneath me.
I stand over him, my deep need yelling at me to claw onto his bulging muscles, press myself against him, and whisper in his ear that I want to give him babies.
A family, a future.
He wants a family, Dad said, but did Silas only want kids with Vanessa?
“I’m going to start now,” I say. “I’ll need to focus.”
Just the work, I tell myself—nothing else.
His ripped back is nothing but a canvas.
It’s definitely not something I’ll drag my hands down as he thrusts up inside of me, as he does it slow at first, then harder, and then we’re rocking together as I start to move with him.
Pushing back against his hungry thrusts, giving him as much pleasure as he’ll give me.
No, not that. Never that.
“I’m ready,” he says.
It’s clear we’re not going to talk about what happened last time.
Maybe it’s like that with all his women.