Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 118114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
I shivered, rubbing my bare arms. Why would he do that? I could understand my father, but why me?
I crumpled the bag closed and shoved it away.
I didn’t like it. I didn’t like any of this.
But last night… I’d enjoyed it. Last night, he’d broken down my defenses. Last night, he’d made my body his.
My gaze caught the blaring yellow on the microwave. Crap, it was already nine and I had a lab in fifteen minutes.
I quickly brushed my teeth and hair, threw on my jeans and a T-shirt and was ready in five.
I grabbed the coffee and brown paper bag, my laptop, and ran out the door. As I passed the security guard, Derek, I said, “I need to talk to you later.”
“Sure thing, Miss Westbrook.”
I hurried out of the building then down the sidewalk one block. I stopped at the corner where the homeless man sat with his empty cup begging for money. He was talking to himself like usual, and without looking up, he held out his paper cup.
“Change for a…?” He tilted his head and his eyes met mine. He smiled. He had perfect white teeth which was unusual for many of the homeless living on the streets. “Mornin’, beauty.” I’d told him my name several times, but he never used it.
I held out the paper bag with the croissant and steaming coffee. “Morning, Ernie.” I bought him a coffee from the bakery every morning since I moved here after the fire.
His bushy salt and pepper brows lowered as he gave me a puzzled looked. He set down his empty cup and took the coffee and paper bag from me. “I was right here. Know I didn’t miss you walkin’ by earlier.”
I laughed. “Don’t worry. You didn’t. Someone bought these for me,” I explained.
He nodded with his lips pursed together as if he were thinking about something. Ernie was an attractive man, maybe late forties, but it was hard to tell with the layer of dirt on his face and hoodie he wore. Weird thing was his fingernails were always clean, except I’d noticed his hands were calloused as if whatever he used to do for a living had been rough on his hands.
The man rarely said much to anyone except the same sentence over and over again, ‘Change for a coffee.’
His eyes locked on me before he said, “Be careful, beautiful.”
And that was it. He went back to rocking and holding out his cup to others who passed by and ignored me. I wondered what he meant, but Ernie could be cryptic with his words. Once he’d told me to ‘Stay away.’ I didn’t know what he meant, but the next day he was across the road and when I started toward him, he began ranting and raving about a devil following him.
“I will. See you tomorrow,” I said then jogged across the street before the light changed, not bothering to go to the bakery and getting something for myself.
All day.
All day I was distracted thinking about Kai. I never saw him watching me, but maybe he was. Maybe I’d been so oblivious to my surroundings that Kai had been following me for years?
I did hope he’d seen me give away the coffee and croissant this morning. It was my statement that I wanted nothing but to fulfill my part of the deal. It was a small inner victory on my part yet if he had seen, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t care.
When I came home from school, the thoughts of Kai magnified. I paced my loft, pasta left untouched on the kitchen counter, bottle of red wine almost empty. Sleep eluded me, while my body betrayed me and my mind sparked with all kinds of irrational thoughts about him. I realized that any control I thought I had over this situation was false.
Kai controlled it.
Every sound made my heart leap as I waited for him. I was curious as to how he got in last night and again early this morning, and the security guard Derek wasn’t at the front desk when I came home from school, so I hadn’t been able to ask him if he’d let Kai in.
Would Kai knock if he knew I was awake? No, I couldn’t imagine Kai asking for permission to do anything.
It was two in the morning when I realized he may not come at all. We’d agreed upon a week, but we’d never discussed if it had to be seven days in succession. God, was he going to drag this out for months? Slip into my loft once a week… me never knowing when.
My breathing picked up at the thought. Because no matter what my mind tried to fight against, he was right. My body knew the truth and it craved his touch.
I climbed into bed, tipsy from too much wine because I rarely drank. I punched my pillow until it indented then curled my hands under my cheek and finally drifted off to sleep.