Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 92070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
"Your juice?"
"The picture of Val. Or the others."
"I looked," I say.
"Oh, yeah? Used it last night to take the edge off?"
I roll my eyes.
He smiles, still certain.
"Why do you care?"
"I care about my friends," he says.
"You care about torturing your friends."
"That's care," he says.
The bathroom door swings open. My client emerges. An out from this conversation. Finally.
I need the distraction anyway. There's too much energy buzzing in my body. All the anticipation of seeing Val. Four months of anticipation.
Patrick's stupid assertion fades as I slip into the zone. Chitchat, ink to skin, aftercare, checkout. Another appointment. The rhythm of the day.
Gym, dinner, shower.
A nagging voice in my head. What if he's right? What if the image does belong in your spank bank?
No way. Patrick is never right.
And I can prove it.
I pull up Val's social media and look at that photo of her on the beach.
The joy in her eyes (she loves the beach), the wavy hair falling over her shoulders, the white bikini struggling to cover her ample chest.
She's gorgeous.
And I'm hard.
But that doesn't mean anything.
This is because of the format. The photo. My body responding to an abstract image. An image that barely resembles my best friend.
Sure. Her smile is radiant and sassy and completely the Val I know.
But that doesn't mean anything.
We're just friends.
Everything is the same.
No problem.
Chapter Three
DARE
Huge problem.
And I mean huge.
Okay, maybe not huge. Maybe more average to slightly above average. But women don't actually want a jackrabbit with eleven inches.
That's painful. Porn is BS. Mainstream porn anyway. People believe it because they want to believe it. But then, that's true of anything. And I'm not exactly an expert.
I can't stomach the mainstream stuff. Too much like Dad's Playboys.
Those images should be burned into my brain since he handed me his stack of magazines the day I turned thirteen. "You're a man now, Darren, so it's time for you to enjoy the perks of the male libido." His version of "the talk." But they make me think of him, and there's nothing less sexy than a pathetic, divorced dude who treats women like shit.
But, hey, I need release now, and beggars can't be choosers.
I find my phone to pull up something, anything, that will do the job before Val arrives.
The device buzzes on my dresser.
Val: Parked. Two minutes. If you're still asleep, I'll let myself in.
Two minutes?
How did she get here so fast?
I can do a lot, but I can't finish, clean up, and collect myself in under two minutes.
Deep breath.
Slow exhale.
Unsexy thoughts.
Dad's girlfriend crying in her car after catching him cheating. My kid brother, Brian, crying in his closet because he didn't want to spend entire weekends with Dad, at a new house, in a new area, surrounded by his bachelor pad bullshit.
Val, sitting under the tree next door, crying because her parents fought again.
She was going through the same thing. An ugly divorce. Only she was a few years ahead of me—her parents had been divorced awhile—and she knew how to guide me through it.
There were other kids at my school who channeled their anger into drugs, booze, petty crime.
With Val's help, I knew how to work through mine.
She didn't just teach me algebra. She saved me.
Beautiful, smart, tough as nails Val.
She can't see me in this state.
Dare: You know I sleep in the nude.
Val: You do not.
Dare: Wanna find out?
What if she says yes?
What if she comes in here and finds me with my hard dick poking out of my boxers?
It's not nude but it's close enough.
Val: Sixty seconds. Get dressed. In a swimsuit. I meant what I said about the ocean.
Dare: It's freezing.
That's exactly what I need. Frigid water to send blood away from sensitive places.
Val: The water is sixty-seven degrees.
At least it's not sixty-nine degrees.
Dare: I gotta find my suit.
Val: I warned you.
Dare: Walk into my bedroom if you wanna see my dick.
I swallow hard.
She doesn't usually call my bluffs. But she might. She—
Shit.
One more time, I channel the least sexy image I can muster. It's the same thing it always is: one of dad's girlfriends asking if he ever loved her, him saying "you really think I'd let a woman like you be my kids' stepmom?", her crying all the way to her car.
She was a sweet woman. Young and uneducated, sure, but it's not like he has a PhD.
There.
My dick doesn't deflate, but it settles enough I find board shorts and a sweatshirt. An extra-long sweatshirt. Just in case.
Val gives me two minutes, then she knocks. "Are you decent?"
"When have I ever been decent?"
"I'll take that as a yes." She unlocks the door and steps inside.
Even in the fluorescent light, she's gorgeous. She's unmistakably Val—the same dark eyes, the same round chin, the same wicked smile—but she's different too.
She's wearing shorts with her bikini top.
Tiny shorts that hug her lush hips. A tiny bikini top that invites vivid mental images.