Total pages in book: 225
Estimated words: 218500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1093(@200wpm)___ 874(@250wpm)___ 728(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 218500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1093(@200wpm)___ 874(@250wpm)___ 728(@300wpm)
She rushes forward, holding her head, but power-walking away from me, digging through her bag, likely going for her phone and maybe some pepper spray. She breaks into a jog, still rifling through the bag, and so I rush her. She stumbles, falling to her hands and knees on the sidewalk.
She squeaks out a sound of pain and looks up at me with giant eyes.
She’s generically attractive. Dainty. Probably used to getting her own way. Just has that look about her.
After a quick scan of my perimeter, I lift my foot and put my boot to her shoulder. I’m putting next to no weight on it, but she immediately loses her balance and now her cheek is pressed to the pavement. And the urge is there to kick her in the face, to stomp on her head.
How fucking dare she go after Chloe.
I resist the urge.
“Chloe Steele, formerly Turner, does not exist.”
She whimpers.
“At all. Understand? You don’t speak her name. You don’t type it. You don’t discuss her whatsoever. Not with anyone.”
I pause for a few beats, then add, “Yeah?”
She whimpers and nods. She’s crying. There’s snot coming out of her nose.
I back off just two paces and spit. The spit lands on her face.
I walk into the house at nearly eight thirty and the aroma of food lingers. I’m fucking starved.
The sight of Chloe’s bare feet on this kitchen floor in the house I bought for her? I’m hard. I take in her skintight blue yoga pants, her little white crop top showing me her belly button. The look on her face? I can’t be sure, but she might be looking at me differently.
I’m harder.
She’s got her hair tucked behind her ears, her teeth are chewing her bottom lip, and she’s drying a frying pan with a look in her eyes I don’t recognize. Almost like she might be happy to see me.
I set the bookstore bag on the counter, taking an exaggerated whiff of the air as I wrap both arms around her waist and take her lips with mine. She tastes like wine. The whites of her eyes are so bright white. Her eyelashes are so full. The shape of her mouth is fascinating. I never grow tired of watching it move as she talks.
I caress her face, thinking about the fact that she’s mostly quiet around me. I want her lips moving, want her telling me things, want to hear her wants. I want to know that she’s happy. I want to know that she loves that I give that to her.
“Guess I missed Taco Tuesday.”
“I… um…”
“It’s okay. Were they good? Did they make you happy?”
She tilts her head, regarding me.
“I bought you some books. The next two in that series you’re reading.”
Her eyes bounce to the bag on the island and her lips part. She looks surprised in a good way, instead of being panicked like usual with my surprises.
“Um… I made you some. Err, I mean, there are still tacos.” She pulls free of my embrace to open the fridge door. She gestures to a covered dish with half a dozen compartments. I move up and get a better look. There are compartments with taco fixings in them. I look at her face. She gestures with her chin to the counter behind me.
“There’s a plate with shells in the microwave. You just have to zap them for just ten or twenty seconds and then pull the two meat compartments out of that tray there and nuke those too, for maybe forty-five seconds to a minute. Then your other toppings in the platter are cold, so –” She shrugs. “ready to eat.”
“You made dinner for me?” I ask.
She looks away shyly. “I made dinner. There was some left.”
“You made dinner for us,” I repeat and advance, backing her up until she’s against the wall at the edge of the kitchen. My hands sift into her hair, and it feels fucking great woven through my fingers. Our mouths collide again and fuck me, but she’s not recoiling. Not pushing at my chest. Not trying to turn her head away.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” I say. “I would’ve loved to eat with you.”
If she wasn’t thinking of me, she wouldn’t have set those taco shells into the microwave on a plate. She wouldn’t take the time to explain the set-up which was done in a way to make it easy for me to eat when I got home.
Fucking love this.
Her here, waiting for me, having cooked for me? It makes this place feel like something I haven’t had for a long time. An actual home. I’ve spent most of my life moving around. Between boarding schools and my parents’ many homes. College was in the same place for four years, but it was just a crash pad. After that, jumping between cities staying at my two condos or a furnished rental apartment for the occasions I’m in Cincinnati. But this place? This is already starting to feel like a home. Like a place I’ll look forward to after a busy day. Like a retreat.