Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 147415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 737(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 491(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 737(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 491(@300wpm)
With most guys, after a while, it feels samey. Even when it’s perfectly satisfying, a girl can get bored.
I can’t fathom sex with Shepherd ever getting bland.
It’s his intensity, I think.
When he looks at me, he doesn’t notice the sun shining or even that it started to rain on us the last time that evening.
Hair damp, skin slick, a shiver, it didn’t matter.
For two whole days, I became his entire world.
And foly huck, the orgasms.
Plural.
So many Os I lost track, and always during the same session.
That’s no easy task for any normal man.
Of course, Shepherd Foster is anything but normal.
God, just thinking about being with him makes my toes curl.
I’ve found the best sex I’ll ever have—and it just had to be with my off-limits, older, unapproachable boss.
But was he that frigid by the end of the trip?
We spent most of our last day exploring, marking observation sites, testing the drone a couple times for longer range flights before we worked our way toward the marina to meet our ship in the morning.
Overnight, we camped out one more time under the stars, sharing his sleeping bag.
I’m still trying to forget his scent as I unscrew my thermos lid and pour Molly some water into a portable bowl as we sit on the bench on Alki Beach.
I let myself remember our final night, and I don’t just mean the X-rated paradise he swept me away to.
The way he held me in his arms.
The way he cradled me, tight and strong and so big.
The way he was so present, there with me like I became the focal point of his universe.
Sue me.
I’m not being overly sensitive or romantic or anything like that, but it’s enough to make a girl melt.
So was his grumpy, adorably groggy butt the next morning when I woke up to the smell of him cooking instant eggs and sausage over a fire.
Just seeing Shepherd Foster so liberated feels like catching a secret I’m not sure was meant for me. All the little things no one else would notice.
The morning breakfast wasn’t a surprise, no, but the way he snuggled back down with me after we ate for a lazy extended morning was.
I never imagined the bossman could snuggle.
What else don’t I know?
My life has been cleanly divided into two phases. Before and After last weekend.
Except, somehow Before feels like one long hazy dream in black and white.
After, now that’s transcendent.
Like seeing the world in color for the very first time. A learning experience I wasn’t ready for, and if there’s a lesson, I hope to God one day I’ll figure it out.
I’m still trying.
But I remember the mole on the small of his back.
The scar across his side that matches the one on his face. I spent a long time kissing both, asking questions with my lips he wouldn’t answer.
Who hurt you Shepherd?
Who or what made your life so hard you pretend not to care?
Seriously, my knees have never been so weak.
Ugh.
I’m grateful there were other moments, though.
As Molly flops down by my feet, taking a breather, we linger by the park bench. I’m reluctant to head home and read over a new stack of sea otter studies.
Another night is creeping in, and that’s when the memories come out to shame the bedbugs with their bite.
I’m not sure I’ll ever forget our last real conversation about Vanessa Dumas after we pillaged each other for the last time.
I never thought he’d ever talk about it in such detail.
Especially not while we were still naked in the cool morning air, huddled together in layered sleeping bags and blankets across the sand.
“You were right,” he says against my hair, holding me so close.
We’re chest to chest, and his warmth soaks into me like a bath. I sigh against his throat.
“That’s a big deal, you fessing up. What was I right about?”
“I never hurt her. Vanessa, I mean.”
I pause.
That’s not a massive surprise, but hearing him say it is.
I knew I wasn’t wrong, but for him to come out and even bring it up...
“...do you want to talk about what happened with her?”
“Fuck it, why not?” He twines a lock of my hair around his fingers. “I think I just want you to know my side of the story. The truth. Someone else should, besides the lawyers who only listen because I’m paying them a thousand bucks an hour. Because you knew what she said wasn’t true, but I never told you what was.”
His heart starts pounding against my cheek.
I shift around, wrapping myself more firmly around him.
We just finished our last round of sex maybe fifteen minutes ago. My body still feels warm and content.
“I’m listening,” I whisper.
“We had an arrangement, Vanessa and me. A rotten fucking idea from day one. She agreed to be a prop, to raise her profile by association, all so I could swat down any rumors along with advances from women I had zero interest in. To me, they were always a distraction. It should’ve been simple. She’d accompany me to a few events. Just enough to get our names out there as a couple. I’d give her a chance to make connections for her career. I knew how important that was to her. But one night she let the deal go to her head, or hell, maybe she planned it from the beginning. She tried to fuck me in our car, and I wasn’t having it. I told her the next day the arrangement was done.”