Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
“Fucking contrarian. Your quick defense must mean I’m all the way in the top three. Damn, I’m good.”
He laughed and rolled his eyes. “I don’t think egos like ours were ever intended to be in the same room together,” he said, and didn’t I know it. “A BJ isn’t an impressive list to make it on,” he went on, not denying my claim, which was good enough for me.
“So what would be the most impressive list?”
He didn’t have to think long. “Top Five Ass.”
“Well, you’ve seen my ass, so…”
“Not your actual ass. Like topping and bottoming.”
“Oh…oh…” That should have been more obvious to me, but something about the idea…seemed way too much for me at the moment.
He must’ve noticed my expression because he burst into a laugh. “Don’t worry, Brodes. I know you like to take it slow.”
“I think you can hardly say that what happened in the office was slow.”
“No, I would say the pacing was just right. But if you work on your stroke and sucking skills, you could have a chance at the number-one spot.”
“Challenge accepted,” I said. “So what’s it gonna take for me to get to number one in the ass and dick department?”
“Number one? Maybe you should lower your expectations a little, newbie.”
“New but ambitious.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “I’m assuming this means you don’t have an issue staying for dinner.”
“You can’t just let a guy suck and go? You seem needy.”
“This meat is about to go bad, and Isaac and I aren’t going to be able to finish it by ourselves.”
“Sure, it’s the meat’s fault that I need to stick around,” I said skeptically as I approached him at the stove, assessing his pretty face before leaning in and licking his lips.
“Be careful about tempting a Mitchell, O’Ralley.”
I snickered. “Careful isn’t going to work for me.”
I licked across his bottom lip, and he moved forward for a kiss. I leaned back quickly, turning my lips away, a cruel tease, and he let me know it as he nibbled against my jaw.
It was such a strange exchange, some primal impulses acting out, the animals in us just wanting to tear off our clothes and find out on the kitchen table who was the alpha male. It was the only sort of competition I could think of that would end with two winners regardless of the outcome.
“I should text Walker to let him know I won’t be home for dinner,” I said, retrieving my phone from my back pocket, and noticed the hard-on Cohen was sporting. I couldn’t resist giving it a pat before taking a seat at the table. Cohen found his way into the adjacent chair, checking the timer on the meat as I let Walker know I was busy, hoping he wouldn’t press for why.
“You guys always have dinner together?” Cohen asked.
“Not all the time. Some of us work shifts over dinner, and we’ve got errands from time to time. Unless someone’s attending a conference or something, we try to make sure to be there on weekends. We usually have breakfast and dinner together then. Something we did with Big Momma…a family tradition we like to keep alive.”
“That’s nice. It was always different in my household. With my adoptive parents, that is. Dad had to work a lot of late nights, and even when he was around, he was mainly talking to me about business. Mom wasn’t the type for cooking, so it was a lot of hamburgers and pizza on the couch. Looking back, I think I wound up cooking more homemade meals for them than the other way around. Don’t get me wrong, I love them for taking me in. Just…I don’t know, when you talk about your connection with your family, I can say it definitely didn’t feel like that. And then there’s this part of me that wonders how it would have been with my biological mom, a thought I try not to indulge too much because I was one of the lucky ones to get to have kind adoptive parents.”
“I would think that’s a pretty natural thing to consider,” I said, unable to even contemplate a childhood without my parents. Silence stretched between us, like we were both taking a moment for the ones we’d lost. When I felt satisfied with the time we’d offered up, I went on, “When we were younger, Big Daddy used to say that he was going to have to leave this world before Momma because he didn’t think he could bear it without her. Guess life showed him…”
“Do you mind if I ask how she…?” He hesitated to say the word.
“I don’t know how you feel about it, but I’m fine if you say died. I’ve always fucking hated when people would talk about her passing…moving on…leaving. Of all the things, she sure as fuck didn’t leave us. Didn’t have a choice. And moving on or passing makes it seem…far more painless and peaceful than it was.” My thoughts drifted back to the hospital, and then to the hospice. “I think the only thing that made it peaceful were the painkillers they had her on. Pancreatic cancer, by the way. From the time we found out to the end, had about three months.”