Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63741 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63741 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Reminding myself why I’m here, I look around. Sure enough, my vibrator is sitting upright on his nightstand.
With a mustache sticker attached to it right below the tip.
It makes it look like a silly little man, and I have to stifle a giggle, but then I’m annoyed with Griffin all over again. He shouldn’t be getting into my things, not to mention that it’s embarrassing that he knows I have a vibrator.
And how does he know, anyway? I don’t leave it sitting out. Oh god … did he hear me using it?
Snatching it up, I march back to my room, but once I’m in there I’m too distracted to make use of it. My mind keeps cycling back to our encounter in the office, every single explosive moment of it, and I know my battery-operated boyfriend will be no match for my frustration.
If Griffin’s going to steal my sex toys, maybe I should get myself a real, live one, like Hazel suggested. Burning off my sexual energy with another man would be the best way to distract myself from my ridiculously tempting housemates.
There’s a bar not far away. I’d rather go to a different one, since the closest one seems the most likely candidate for one of the men to visit, but since I’m on foot, it’s my best option.
Slipping out of the house, I cover the distance quickly. It’s not quite as fancy a place as Diamond Hearts, but it’s nice enough, not a dive. I sit at the bar and ask for a Long Island, and I’ve barely been there a minute when a man slides onto the stool next to me.
I flick a sideways glance his way. He’s good looking by general standards—tall, handsome, fit—and I feel nothing, no spark of attraction. When he smiles at me, I force myself to smile back. It’s what I’m here for, after all.
There’s a momentary pang of guilt that I’m only aiming to use him, or someone like him, but isn’t that his goal too? We’re both hunting for relief.
“What’s your name?” he asks, and the dance is underway.
GRIFFIN
There’s a band I sit in with sometimes, and we had a good practice tonight. We got drinks after, but the other guys didn’t stick around too long, because they all have families to go home to.
I don’t. I have Zeb, and Frank … and Ember. Who’s probably found her vibrator by now, and is making good use of it. I don’t want to torture myself by listening to that again.
So I’m sitting at a table in the back, brooding, nursing a beer, when my skin tingles, like a ripple of electricity has flowed through the room. I look up and see Ember taking a seat at the bar.
My first impulse is to go to her, like a moth to the proverbial fucking flame. But I stop myself. She’s made her feelings clear, and I’m not in the mood for more rejection right now.
It’s so fucked up. She’s the most special woman I’ve ever known, and I can’t touch her—she says—because we work together. And if we didn’t, I probably would never have met her.
Which is a thought I cannot stand. Having her in my life is infinitely better than not knowing her, no matter how hard—in all senses of the word—things are right now.
I keep my distance, but I can’t take my eyes off her, so I see the moment a man sits next to her. My hands curl into fists as he starts talking to her. He smiles, and she smiles back, with a little toss of her hair.
I want to kill the guy, whoever he is. Doesn’t he see the big, neon Hands Off sign I’ve cosmically attached to her?
She’s wearing a short skirt, and the dude keeps looking down, checking out her bare legs. As the two of them laugh about something, he touches her thigh, letting his hand rest there a moment.
Fuck him. No one else should be touching her. As my stomach churns, my phone buzzes.
It’s Zeb. Finishing up dinner, ready in a few minutes.
Leaving Ember with this guy is not an option. And hell, maybe I feel like starting trouble. So I text him back. I’m at Double or Nothing. Ember’s here and some guy’s hitting on her.
The response is immediate. I’ll be right there.
ZEB
Frank comes in from outside, pulling on his t-shirt, as I’m turning off the burners on the stove. “Dinner ready?” he asks.
“Help yourself. I’m going out. Ember’s at Double or Nothing and there’s a guy hitting on her.”
He looks alarmed. “She’s in trouble?”
I scowl. “Not so far as I know.”
His expression changes, and I want to punch him even before he speaks. “Zeb … if Ember wants to go out, meet someone, that’s her business.”
“Fine. You stay here.”
His eyes glint. “I’ll come with you.” I hear the Just to keep you out of trouble part loud and clear, and some other time I might get into it with him about his self-assumed big brother role, but not right now.