Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Not very fucking much.
Time to make hard choices, Luke.
That time, it wasn’t Delaney’s voice in his head. She never used that nickname, or any other; but he came to understand that he preferred her breathy or sweet calls of name, anyway. No, that was his own brain telling him what he already knew.
Ronald had gone too far this time.
On the other hand, the fallout, and what it all meant, had just begun for Lucas. He forced himself to look on the bright side of the unfortunate situation before him: at least the ball was finally in his court. He just had to figure out what, exactly, to do with it.
*
“Sweetheart,” Lucas said, the relief in his voice clear as he picked up Delaney’s early morning call, “hey.”
“You sound happy—to hear from me?” she asked, as if that should be a surprise.
“Why not?”
Her muffled laughter trailed off on the other end of the phone, but the background noise from the call came with the shuffle of feet and a click of a door closing. That spread of silence allowed him the chance to resituate his phone.
Lucas set the phone to the edge of his desk in the spare bedroom of his apartment that he used for an at-home office. On speakerphone, he could continue typing out the email he’d drafted during the extra twenty minutes he had before he had to run for brunch. A meeting he didn’t particularly want to keep, but couldn’t refuse at the moment, either.
“I don’t know, seems sus,” Delaney muttered, coming back on the line.
Her heavy sigh, full of tension, floated over the phone followed by a tiny groan.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Are you one of those guys that needs to pretend like your girlfriend doesn’t bleed once a month or takes a shit, or something?”
Her frankness took Lucas by surprise—so much so that he missed a letter or two in the alphabet for his next word and needed to hit the backspace button repeatedly to start over again. All the while, he blinked at his screen.
“You are …”
Lucas searched for the right word.
“Fucking amazing,” Delaney mumbled on the other end while water tinkled in the background.
She then let out her own sigh of relief.
She had the best way of snapping him back to reality. “Yeah, you are.”
Delaney giggled. “Honestly, I meant this bath. My period started this morning, and I have been waiting for Bexley to leave for classes so I could make this bath so hot I needed the door wide open,” Delaney informed.
Lucas cringed—in sympathy, of course.
“Sorry about the period,” he settled on saying.
It seemed appropriate.
Delaney snickered. “Please, no apologies needed. It means I’m not pregnant—not possible anyway—and I have better orgasms when I masturbate over the next week. It’s a win-win for me. The first day is the worst, really.”
Just like that, his fingers froze where they hovered over the keyboard of his laptop. As if the image his mind conjured up instantly at the mere mention of her masturbating was the only thing it cared to focus on. Not even blinking made the image behind his eyeballs go away.
Damn.
What an image it was.
“Yeah, fucking amazing,” he managed to murmur.
She made the sweetest noises under her breath as water sloshed in the background before she finally seemed to settle into the bathtub he couldn’t quite picture. His mind had no problem filling in the blanks with his own ideas, even grasping onto the belief that she would look like heaven in a clawfoot tub surrounded by hot water and silky bubbles.
“And don’t think I forgot about you sounding happy to hear me,” Delaney said, giving Lucas something to latch onto instead of his dirty thoughts.
He chuckled.
“Honestly, I was just happy I looked at my phone before I screened the call,” Lucas said. “I’ve rejected—” he picked up the phone to check the exact number on the notification ribbon of missed calls from one particular number “—eighteen calls from my father in the last hour.”
He made a dismissive noise, adding, “Could have been you.”
“Yikes,” she returned quietly.
Regardless of the reason, he was happy to see a call from her show up on his phone that morning. Even if he had kissed her goodbye less than twenty-four hours earlier before handing her off to a cab he’d arranged ahead to take her home from the airstrip just outside of Fredericton.
“Wait—eighteen?” she asked, tone pitching high.
“Yep.”
“Aren’t you guys in the same building today? I thought you would be at work already. Can’t I hear you typing?”
Ah.
“I’m currently drafting a letter I plan to send out before I leave here shortly—in the company newsletter. It’ll explain my extended absence, considering recent events, and a reminder that my privileges to take time off for family emergencies or mental health matters are just as important and valued as their right to do so. My father will hate that part the most,” he tacked on the end to make sure the point hit home.