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)
This time, it was Delaney who needed more time to form a response.
“Oh,” she finally said. “Will it help, do you think?”
“Help what?”
“How bitter you feel toward him,” Delaney filled in.
The answer seemed easy.
It really wasn’t.
“Yes and no,” Lucas decided to say, “and neither of those, or my father, are more important than the fact you called me this morning. Can we get back to that?”
She chuffed on the other end of the phone.
He smirked to himself, returning to typing the last sentence of his letter to the company’s employees.
“My cousin is kind of mad at me,” Delaney said, filling the silence with something that he found interesting. And a little sad.
“Because of last week?”
“And you.”
Ouch.
That hurt a bit.
“It comes from good intentions, doesn’t it?” he asked. “Because she worries about you, clearly.”
“Yeah, but she’s not very good at showing it. Or in this case, how she says it.”
The way she tiptoed around the topic made Lucas think she didn’t want to talk too much about it. He wouldn’t push.
“But,” Delaney continued before Lucas could say anything at all, “she’s gone for the day, so I get a few hours of peace, anyway, and I don’t have to work until Wednesday this week. Well,” she corrected, letting the word trail off.
“What?” he asked.
“Linda asked me to lunch tomorrow afternoon—to check in, she said.”
Delaney didn’t sound like she believed that.
“It was my fault,” she added after a moment, “I called yesterday to let her know I got back in town, so.”
“I see. I hope I haven’t put you in a situation with your job—”
He should have known better than to say anything.
Delaney wasn’t having it.
“I’m an adult who makes my own choices. If I lose my job because I took off and lied about having a family emergency, so be it. Losing a position isn’t going to change the fact I still have a valuable skill I can put to work literally anywhere,” Delaney said.
Shit.
He was glad she had all this figured out.
Lucas couldn’t say the same even if he was working on it.
“So, what’s your morning look like if you’re not going to work, huh?” Delaney asked.
“My question first,” Lucas said, doing one last scan through the email before pressing send to push it through to every employee on the mailing list. “Deal?”
“Hey, now, the last time we made one of those, I got bruises up the front of my thighs from getting bent over a counter,” she replied, laughing.
“Exactly. This can only go in a good direction, right?”
She might have squeaked under her breath.
He kind of loved it.
“Okay, what?” she breathed.
“Since we’re asking personal questions on this lovely morning,” he muttered, pushing away from the desk to head out of the office, “and you brought it up first, what exactly, are you planning to do in that bathtub when you hang up with me shortly?”
Delaney scoffed at the question.
High with embarrassment.
Thick from desire.
He heard both clearly.
“Come on, Delaney,” he urged, already passing through the hall connecting directly into the master suite across from his office. His bed, still unmade, didn’t even look inviting. Like the rest of the place, it all felt like an extension of a life he had made to fit a person he could no longer be.
He didn’t have to think about those things when he put his attention back on the woman waiting, breathing a bit heavier, on the phone.
“Tell me,” he coaxed, grinning.
“You are so terrible,” she uttered.
“Do you use toys, or just those fingers? What am I licking clean next time, baby?”
“Oh, my God.”
“Which one?”
“Either will do,” she managed to say.
“And today?”
“Toys.”
“Toys,” he echoed, husky in the back of his throat because he could already feel his dick growing hard under his slacks.
Maybe he shouldn’t have wasted time getting dressed just yet.
“Two, actually.”
“Two.”
He was starting to sound like a parrot.
“Mmhmm,” Delaney hummed. “A waterproof wand I put right on my clit and—”
“Oh, let me guess,” he jumped in before she could ruin the surprise.
Her breathless giggle did wicked things to his body.
Lucas would work on fixing that problem shortly.
“What?” Delaney asked. “What else do you think I use?”
“Probably some thick vibe you use to fuck your tight, little hole just enough that you can feel the way you pulse around it—I remember what you liked.”
A heat—needier than ever—colored up her words. “God, why are you so right, too?”
He only laughed.
She liked what she liked.
“Are you using either right now?” he asked, honestly curious.
And already popping open the button on his slacks.
“I swear on everything that I did not plan to call you at work for phone sex today,” Delaney put in.
As if that had ever even mattered.
“Sweets,” he told her, “that is not what I asked.”
She sighed, defeated.
In the best possible way.
“It’s not nearly as big as you,” she admitted. “Blame my period for this, okay? It makes me unfairly horny.”