Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“Oh, God, no. I don’t want you. I just want to look at you,” she said, smirking. “I like you for Mere, actually. You could messy things up for her. I think that’s… good,” she said, giving me a look that said a million things. “I figure you’ll be seeing a lot of each other. Maybe one of those times, you can ask about her upbringing. It might make a lot of things make sense.”
And with that, she was walking away.
“And you better not get dressed in the morning before I get to see you without your shirt on,” she called as she walked into her bedroom.
I wouldn’t put it past the woman to strip me if I tried.
Alone, I glanced around a bit before going to the TV, switching something on, figuring it would help with any awkwardness that might arise when Mere came out.
Where I was sitting, my cock half-hard at just the thought of her one room away, submerged in the tub. And maybe her nipples would start to get hard as the water began to cool. Taut pink peaks just begging to be touched, to be sucked into my…
“Fuck,” I hissed, then reached for my phone, shooting off a text to Gav, telling him I was staying out for the night because of the storm.
I almost immediately got a text back.
Whoever she is, she better not be married. Or shacked up with someone in the life.
I decided not to tell him it was someone equally as bad news, given the situation.
I wasn’t shacked up with her either.
But that was beside the point.
Because I damn sure wanted to be.
She came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, a waft of a feminine-smelling soap accompanying her as she walked out wearing nothing but a barely-there creamy pink silk robe.
She damn sure wasn’t helping the situation with my cock that went from half-mast to fully upright.
“All yours, if you need it,” she said, offering me a small smile before going off into her room.
As soon as I heard the door shut, I scurried my ass into that bathroom where no one would see my raging hard-on as I got changed and did some fucking math equations in my head until the situation was more under control.
I pulled on the sweatpants, folded all my clothes up with my jewelry sitting on top, then made my way out.
Then there she was.
In a goddamn nightgown that was loose, but still somehow didn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination.
“Let me help,” I offered, making her head shoot up.
And I wasn’t imagining the way her eyes went heavy-lidded and heated, how her lips parted ever so slightly, as her gaze moved over my bare torso.
“I’m under strict orders not to wear a shirt until Vega sees me in the morning,” I told her, waving at my body, silently inviting another inspection.
Which she gave me.
Shyly.
From under those thick lashes of hers.
Scrubbed free of makeup with her damp hair pushed behind her ears, she looked somehow even softer than she had before.
Fuck, but it took every ounce of self-control I had not to reach out and touch her as I moved forward, helping her put a damn fitted sheet on the couch, because she insisted, then a sheet, a blanket, a comforter. Then pillows with fresh shams.
“I know it’s a lot,” she said, looking over at me as she hugged my pillow to her chest, making me know it was going to be a night of tossing and turning with an aching cock as her scent flooded my senses.
“What is?” I asked, sitting down.
“All the… cleaning and organizing and preparing. It’s a lot.”
“Figure maybe you have your reasons,” I said, looking up at her as she let out a little huff and looked away.
“You have no idea.”
“I’d like to,” I said, patting the seat next to me, knowing it was dangerous, and just all the more intrigued by that. “If you want to tell me…”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mere
I was pretty sure, by the time I got into the bathroom and shut the door, that I had never actually been quite so turned on before in my entire life.
And all the man did was… exist. Occasionally throw out a pet name. Brush off my eccentricities like it was no big deal.
But, my God, I never could have known just how appealing that would be. A man who didn’t raise his brows or roll his eyes at my strange behaviors, my rituals.
I mean, not only that, but he actually sensed when I was feeling weird about one of those rituals being interrupted, and offered to let me fix the situation.
It was all just so… unexpected.
And welcome.
Everyone I had known in my life who’d come face-to-face with all my varied “issues,” had treated me like I was a freak because of it.