Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 138844 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138844 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
I threw back my drink, glad he’d bought a whole bottle.
“Since when do I have the balls to do what I want?” I asked him.
There was my answer.
Lucian was frustrated with me. I could tell.
“And it’s all because of Noa,” he pressed.
Fuck no. It was partly him, but my cowardice came from the fear of facing my parents. My father was the worst. No, I was the worst, because I couldn’t fucking understand the hold they had on me. I knew how goddamn wrong they were, with every fiber of my being, and yet, I flinched at the thought of seeing shame and disappointment in his eyes. Judgment. Disgust.
I supposed that was the hold—and I hated myself for it. I shouldn’t give a fuck.
The disgust was the most painful because it would overshadow everything I’d done that they were proud of.
I was their only son, their only child, and they had invested a lot in me.
To Lucian, all I said was, “I can’t leave him.”
Noa was my best excuse.
“Fuck me sideways, this is good,” I groaned.
“So good,” Lucian slurred.
I chewed on a mouthful of falafel and brushed lettuce off my shirt.
I loved falafel, and falafel loved me back. But it had to be from this particular place north of Foggy Bottom. The married couple who ran the hole-in-the-wall was from Lebanon, and they won the falafel wrap race, in my opinion. Most places didn’t serve it in freshly baked bread; they did. And the…whatever it was, some kind of garlic butter, was fucking divine, especially after a night out.
We’d discovered the place shortly after Lucian had closed on his first condo.
He’d just traded up to a larger two-bedroom in the same area, and it had a sleep alcove where I crashed from time to time. Like tonight.
I took a swig of my Coke and almost stumbled over nothing. Christ. We’d come too far to lose it now. Just half a block, and then we’d be at his building.
I belched and took another bite of my wrap.
“Will you buy…buy me a gift in Germany?” I asked.
He chuckled with his mouth full. “I can get you Jägermeister from the airport.”
I made a face and elbowed him.
“Always so violent!” Hell, his voice echoed. He realized he’d been loud, and he laughed and hiccupped. “I can’t remember the last time I was this wasted.”
“Me either.” It was funny, considering I’d complained to him today about Christine’s drinking habits.
Maybe I was overreacting.
Maybe I wasn’t. She’d still stolen two grand from me.
Fuck.
We made it to Lucian’s place and finished our food in the elevator, and I planted a hand on my stomach to get a sense of how much more I wanted to eat. I didn’t feel full yet. The Coke was incredibly good, though. I wanted more of that.
“Do you have soda and food?” I asked.
“The things I’m gonna do to a bag of kettle chips in a few minutes…” He was watching the numbers tick higher. All the way up to…the fourth floor. It was a slow-as-fuck elevator in an ancient building.
“Yeah? You want some privacy?” I smirked.
The elevator dinged, and he stepped out. “It’s okay. You can watch.”
Fucker.
I followed him, my gaze landing on his polished shoes hitting the dark blue carpet. Muted step by muted step. Nice suit pants… Nice thighs.
Fantastic ass.
“Ugh.” It wasn’t like I could see it with the suit jacket in the way.
I’d seen it countless times before, though.
“I think I have pizza in the fridge from last night,” he said as an afterthought.
Excellent. Pizza and…watching him defile a bag of chips.
I wanted to get in on the defiling.
As he unlocked the door, I got another whiff of his cologne, and I could’ve kicked him in the balls. He’d always been attractive to me, sometimes frustratingly sexy—and the frustrating part was his composure. At some point, he’d decided to never give me an arm if he’d offered a hand. I could provoke him and earn a cocked brow or an annoyed retort, but if I pushed further, he simply shut down and waited till I’d “finished my tantrum,” in his words.
“You know what we should do? We should try skydiving,” I said.
He threw me a look over his shoulder as he entered his home. “There’s a Yoda quote for that suggestion.”
There is no try…
I cracked up. He could be damn funny sometimes.
“Also, abso-fucking-lutely not, and neither are you,” he finished.
Buzzkill.
“You’re not my Master, you know,” I retorted.
He chuckled to himself and aimed straight for the kitchen, so I followed again. We got rid of our late-night street food trash, and then he opened the fridge.
“You’d be a nightmare to dominate,” he murmured into the fridge.
I leaned back against the kitchen counter and scratched my jaw. Yeah, there was no dominating me. But I could admit to myself that I had thought about bottoming once or twice.