Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46914 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 235(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46914 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 235(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
In a sudden impossible fantasy, I’m reaching over, stroking my hand up and down his groin, moaning in a way I somehow know he likes, moaning like I’m familiar with all the ways I could excite him.
I feel him getting hard, and then I stare into his eyes with no nerves or shame.
This isn’t meaningless, I’ll tell him. This ends in a family.
But Kennedy hangs between us, as well as the fact of what we’re doing.
The fact that he’s giving me a ride without knowing me at all, only having exchanged some texts.
Perhaps he thinks he will be able to get some easy sex out of me, casually, when I’m simply not built for that.
I’m twenty-one. It’s embarrassing.
But I can’t change what I am.
Or, I can, I will…
One day, when I find the right man.
I’ve found him. He’s sitting right next to me.
“Why don’t you normally like texting?” I ask.
“Huh?”
“Before,” I go on, “you said you don’t normally like it. Why not?”
He laughs, but it has a dark edge like emotion is bubbling beneath the surface.
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m a dinosaur. We don’t do technology.”
“You’re not a dinosaur,” I say fiercely. “Forty-one isn’t old. And anyway, it’s not like you’re an average forty-one-year-old, whatever that would be.”
My nerves threaten to twist, to stifle me, to make me ache with the force of my words. I’m coming on far too strong, but I can’t have him thinking I see him as old.
I can’t have him thinking our age gap matters.
“Average or not, my age is my age.”
“Are you self-conscious about it?” I ask. “I mean, Kennedy is only in her early twenties.”
His jaw tightens at the mention of her name. It’s like he’s pissed at me for bringing her up in conversation.
And fair enough. I can’t really blame Weston for that.
In his mind, I’ve got no right to mention her name.
The woman he saved.
The woman he was caught on video saving, his teeth bared, swinging his fists as three men rushed him, and he handled them with ease.
Sure, he took a few shots, but he came out the winner.
The first time I watched it, it made me think of him going into action like that for me, our family – the family that will never exist.
“Isn’t she?” I prod, though I should know better when he doesn’t answer.
“I don’t know how old she is,” he snaps.
“It says on her social media pages. She’s twenty-two.”
I exist in a strange place because I can’t imagine him being with anybody else. The thought of him kissing another woman causes sickness to swirl in my belly.
But I also want to know if he finds age gaps a problem so….
So what, I can steal him from a woman ten times more glamorous than I’ll ever be?
“Ah, right,” he says, which isn’t an answer.
“Did you see her post this morning about how grateful she is?”
“I don’t have social media. Dinosaur, remember?”
“Stop saying that.”
He looks at me sharply, a smirk touching his lips, before turning back to the road.
“What?” I say.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
His smirk widens. “Maybe I like it when you get sassy.”
His words are husky – the word like shimmers through me with a sense of profound disbelief.
It’s crazy that Weston Wyatt would like anything about me, but here we are.
I almost say, Is it better than when Kennedy gets sassy?
But clearly, he doesn’t want to speak about it.
Maybe, with his other women, they know better than to question things like this. They don’t want to pry too deeply in case he gets bored and kicks them out on their asses, but I don’t care about any of that.
I want something real, emotional, I want heat… love, maybe, definitely.
My head spins, thoughts clash, and thinking becomes difficult.
The closer we get to my house, the grimier the surroundings become.
I notice Weston looking around with distaste.
“You don’t like my neighborhood?” I say, trying to make my tone joking. “This is how some people have to live, you know.”
“I grew up dirt poor, Alice,” he says roughly.
Despite his angry tone, a flutter grips me when he uses my name.
“You don’t have to educate me about how difficult life can be. My answer is no, by the way. I don’t like it. I wish my mystery woman didn’t have to live here.”
His mystery woman….
If it wasn’t for thoughts of his other women, I’d be singing a song within me right now, a wailing tune of pure joy, but there’s a high probability he says things like this to all his women.
“I have to live somewhere,” I murmur. “And this is all I can afford. At least Natasha – she’s my sister – gets to study.”
“Hairdressing,” he says, nodding.
I smile, wondering if it’s as big a deal as it feels, the fact he remembered.
“Has she got a tasty meal waiting for you?” he asks.