Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Besides, the thought of her swelling with my baby did things to me. I wanted that. I wanted to see her making lemonade for me and our kids while I was doing yard work with them in some suburban paradise. She’d come out in a sun dress with a wide brimmed hat and make a cute comment about her hard working boys–or how her girls were daddy’s little helpers.
Fuck if I knew the details. All I knew was I wanted it. I was greedy for it. Absolutely starving.
Darcy’s breath was hot against my chest as she gasped out. Her heels dug into me and I knew that meant she was about to come. “Oh fuck,” she gasped. “I want to feel it inside me,” she whispered.
And just like that, my cock obeyed. I slapped a palm to the wall, body going tense as I felt my release roar through me. She clung to me tight, gasping for breath as she came. I could feel her walls gripping me tight–milking me for every last drop.
I finally let out a sigh when I was through and she had gone soft against me. I heard footsteps a moment later and rushed to set her down. Darcy did a sexy little shimmy to pull her skirt back down and quickly fussed with her hair and wiped at her mouth. I cleared my throat and zipped up, cock still wet from her arousal.
We turned just in time to see three men in hardhats coming toward us. It was our contractor, the architect, and an interior designer.
They all smiled and we started our meeting as planned. The whole time, my brain was buzzing with the enjoyment of knowing I’d just fucked the shit out of Darcy right where we were standing and none of them had any idea. From the way Darcy’s cheeks kept randomly going red, I had a feeling she was thinking about it too.
“Oh,” the contractor said, pointing his pencil at a shredded pair of panties with a dark wet patch on them by our feet. “I’m not sure how those got here. Sorry, Mr. Lockwood.”
“No worries,” I said. I knelt, picked them up, then stuck them in my pocket with a wink. “We were just checking the acoustics in here. Top notch,” I added.
42
DARCY
The new building wasn’t completely finished, but it was getting close. We met there and gathered in the mostly empty room that now had a couch or two and a few desks–some of which were covered in cling wrap and not yet assembled. Charleston had brought a mix tape his boyfriend supplied. He had a mobile DJ table set up with huge speakers and a little mixing station. I was pretty sure he had no idea what he was doing, but he looked adorable with his headset held to one ear while bobbing his head.
I wouldn’t say we had “poached” employees from The Union Coast and The Squawker, but once word spread that we were starting our own thing, people came. Elizabeth and Polly had come over to write for us. Even Kirk and Farhad were going to work remotely for us as sort of freelance style writers. Jasmine had come as well, claiming she was over the office politics at The Union Coast. Surprisingly, she didn’t seem to hold any sort of grudge against Dominic for replacing her at The Squawker.
We had a few other new faces as well, and everybody was mingling while Charleston played his music. Dominic was chatting with Marcus and Tristan. They were still with The Squawker, but they’d agreed to come to the party and were still on good terms. After all, Dominic selling his share of the company to them was a huge opportunity in their eyes. Both men were now the two lone partners running The Squawker, which was exploding in success and earning them both a fast-growing reputation and swelling bank accounts.
I sat at the edge of the room, temporarily off the radar while everybody was having fun. I smiled, watching it all and feeling a swelling of pride in my stomach. I knew this was something I’d made happen. I always thought my dream was to prove I could write something meaningful. But now I sensed that I’d helped build a place where people could do meaningful things. I could still write my own pieces, but I was also giving a voice to dozens of our employees, and that seemed like it meant so much more.
Dominic had given me three choices as part of his apology. Join on as an equal partner in the ownership of The Squawker, take Dominic’s share and let him prove he’d throw away his right to the business just to have me back, or have him sell his stake in the company all together.
I’d gone with the third option, but with one catch. First, I wanted to make sure he wouldn’t be miserable. I didn’t want him to leave to prove a point. I wasn’t that insecure. I wanted him to leave because The Squawker was always going to be something repurposed to both of us. It was a compromise. I realized both of us had been compromising our whole lives. We were chasing some version of our dream that fit within the walls our fathers had put up for us.