Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
“Stop that.” He aims a stern look at me. “I’m accusing you of something very serious.”
“Wanting to see you naked?” I frown and tilt my head. “Or wanting to see you lose?”
“Both.” He glares at the one card left in my hand. “And I bet that’s a Wild card. That’s the other way you’ve cheated. I can’t figure out how, but you’ve had Wild cards every hand.”
“What can I say? That card is drawn to me. I always get it at least once every time. I used to love it growing up because you could change the color to whatever you wanted.”
“Well I have four cards,” he says. “And you only have that one left, so we both know you’re about to win. Just play it.”
Instead of throwing down my final card, I stand and walk over to his side of the table. I toss one leg over his and straddle him in the chair, running the edge of my card down his chest and abs. His muscles flex beneath the card’s trajectory. I turn it over and slap it against his naked chest. He glances down and roars a disbelieving laugh.
“You have to be cheating!” He takes the Wild card and tosses it across the room.
“Sore loser. Now let’s see. You have a sock and this underwear. Which do I want to claim?”
“I don’t like this game anymore,” he says, tugging my hat off and tossing it to the floor.
My hair tumbles down and around my shoulders. “Now that’s cheating. You can’t just start taking my clothes off. You haven’t won one hand.”
“I can,” he says, tugging at my scarf and throwing it over his shoulder. “And I will.”
“Cheat!” I try half-heartedly to get off his lap, but he holds me in place, plucking at the buttons of my winter coat. “This has to go.”
“This is a miscarriage of justice,” I tell him, giggling and squirming as he takes the opportunity to tickle my ribs beneath the coat.
He grabs my hand and rips off one glove. The laughter dies from his eyes as he studies my palm, bringing it to his lips and leaving a kiss across the scar marring it. “You never told me what happened here.”
“Did I not?” I breathe out the last of my amusement and stand, walking across the room to grab the Wild card and bring it back to the table.
“No, but I remember you had it bandaged the day you came to my office with the drive.”
It’s been so long since we discussed that day. It feels like another life, one where he was still an enigma, not the man whose body I know almost as well as my own now. A life where the only outlet I found for my rage was within the walls of this room. That was another woman, and I don’t much want to revisit her.
“I cut myself,” I finally say, taking off the winter coat and hanging it on the hook by the door.
“How?” he asks, leaning back in his chair, as confident in briefs and one sock as most men would be in an Armani suit.
“I found out some news about Edward that made me lose my mind a little,” I say, forcing a laugh. “I took my machete to his clothes, his shoes.”
My eyes stray to the holes and dents still in one wall.
“His man cave.” I shrug. “I knew the Bird jersey was his most prized possession, so I shattered the glass, which is, of course, how I found the drive.”
“And how you cut your hand?”
“Right.”
“What did you find out about Edward?” he asks.
I settle on the chaise longue and pull my knees to my chest, shame seeping in, cold and familiar. “My doctor called and told me I had chlamydia.”
“Sol, shit.” He stands and crosses the small room to sit beside me on the chaise longue. “That motherfucker.”
“It’s curable… I mean, I’m fine now, but that was how I knew for sure Edward was cheating on me.” I turn my palm over in my lap. “You know what I realized, though?”
“What?” he asks, tracing the ugly scar.
“It bisects my lifeline.” I smile down at the lightning bolt of raised flesh across my palm. “And that’s how I think of it. That day, that realization split my life into two parts, from blind trust to eyes wide open. I wouldn’t trade the knowledge of who Edward really is for anything.”
“I still can’t imagine how you felt hearing that.” He brushes my hair back with one hand.
“Hey, some good came of it.” I smile up at him. “If I hadn’t temporarily lost control, I would never have found the drive, and he might not be in prison.”
“And we might not be here now.” He links our fingers and sets our joined hands on his knee.
The idea that Judah would be out there in the world with someone else, or just not with me, and that I’d still be trapped in that plastic bubble Edward tried to maintain, makes me shudder. Terrifies me. I snuggle into Judah and reach up to cup his face, touching my mouth to his. It’s as much an entreaty as it is a kiss—a soft pleading passed between our lips, an invitation to stay while I figure my shit out because I don’t want to imagine him out of my life. I don’t know exactly what this is we’re doing, or what I’m ready to call it, but I want it. I want him, even if a part of me asks if I’m sure I’m ready.