Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 65346 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65346 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
I kissed him again, and again. He flipped over, his ocean-blue eyes like portals into another world, a perfect one.
Then he kissed me, his hand on my hand, thumb tracing over the lines of my ear.
“God, Benji, I’ve been wanting this for so fucking long. Just lying with you, feeling you breathe against me. I missed this so fucking much. Since that one night, I was addicted, and it took me six entire years to get another hit.”
“It’s a good thing it didn’t take a second longer. I missed it, too. A lot.”
“It feels like we turned back time without turning back the clock.”
He said it perfectly. I answered with another kiss, my heart filling to the brim.
I went to sleep wrapped around him that night, and for the night after, and the one after that, too.
And every single night, so long as Rex was there, every single dream was a great one.
18
Rex Madison
Today was a big day. I had dropped a nervous Benji off at the doctor’s office, promising to pick him up in an hour. That didn’t give me much time to get my plan together, so the second Benji stepped into the building, I sped off, tires screeching with how hard I stepped on the gas pedal.
I’d been thinking about this surprise for a bit, so I already had everything I needed back at the guesthouse, hidden away in a storage shed. I just had to get back in time to set it all up before Benji was done.
I pulled into my parking spot in front of the main house. Ashley and Mia were sitting on the porch with Aunt Gabbie, who was playing fetch with her floppy-eared beagle, Muttons. They waved at me and asked if I wanted to sit with some fresh coffee.
“That sounds incredible, Mia, but I’m surprising Benji and have to run right now!”
“Ohhh, can’t wait to hear all about it,” she said.
It didn’t occur to me that this could definitely have pushed Benji and me out in the open, and it gave me a second of pause. Had I made a mistake? Up until now, the connection between Benji and me was private. Mia and Ashley just saw me as their son’s best friend who needed a helping hand, but would they be angry if that changed into their son’s partner?
Not that we’re even anything official.
I sighed. We weren’t official because of me, and I was reminded of that every day, especially more so in recent days, when I’d wake up to a snuggled-in Benji, his naked body like a missing puzzle piece against mine. He’d been spending every night since last week in my bed, and I didn’t want that to change, not for the foreseeable future.
Hell, not even for the unforseeable future for that matter.
The storage shed smelled like wet wood and mulch. I grabbed the heavy box, as tall as I was, and brought it inside first, leaving it in the living room. Then, I went for the other boxes I had ordered online, stacking three of them and carrying them inside.
With that done, I started clearing a space in the living room. I pushed the couch closer toward the TV, moved the large bird of paradise plant to the opposite end of the room, and cleared off the mantle above the fireplace. Then I got to work opening the boxes, starting on the smaller one first.
Before I could even take out its contents, my phone started to ring.
Shit, is he done early?
I hurried to the table and breathed a sigh of relief. The caller ID showed Theo, Stonewall Investigations across the screen. “Hey, Theo, what’s up?”
“Hey, Rex, got a minute?”
“Sure, yeah.”
I stood up, setting the knife I’d used to cut open the box down on the coffee table. This could be worth sparing a few minutes from surprise prep.
“All right, so, I’ve found a few things I wanted to talk to you about, but first, I want to preface this with something, because I hate to set the wrong impression. I don’t have anything solid yet.”
I deflated a little. I wasn’t expecting him to call and say the sick fuck was caught and the tape destroyed, but I at least was expecting big progress.
“But, like I said, I did find a few things, and I think we’re on the right track.” I heard a shuffle of papers from the other line. “Okay, so, I was able to track down where the camera was bought, a small tech store in Brooklyn, and the store is sending me over security footage. I don’t know exactly when the camera was bought, so that complicates things, but researching the model tells me that it came out six months ago, so we’ve got a range to work with. I’m working on narrowing that range down, as well.”