Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85950 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85950 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Her cheeks flame redder. She’s embarrassed by what she was reading. I dart my eyes down, taking note of the title on the spine of the thick book before looking back at her.
“I saw your car outside,” I tell her, hitching my thumb over my shoulder to indicate the parking area out front. “Though’ I'd swing in and see what you were up to. Rather silly now that I think about it, considering this is a bookstore.”
She gives me a weak smile. “Nothing I had at home fit what I was looking for. I read the blurb and just got sucked in. Sage is probably up there wondering if I’m going to read the whole thing here.”
“What are you reading?” I ask, making a bet with myself that she won’t tell me the exact details.
She waves her hand in front of her. “Just a silly romance.”
She means sex. It’s a sex book. I’d bet my life savings on it.
I could probably sit in the chair across from her and visit for a while, but, for the first time in as long as I can remember, there’s a weird void between the two of us. I knew this was a possibility and was even more certain of it when I left her house the other night, but it stings a little to be experiencing it.
“Yeah, so,” I say, grinning at her. “I’ll let you get back to reading.”
“See you later,” she says instead of asking me to stay or offering to hang out.
The destruction to our friendship has already begun.
There aren’t many things I regret in life after becoming friends with her. I stopped regretting being born which was a feeling that plagued me for a very long time as a child. She made everything better. She made the sun warmer and the nights not so lonely with just the prospect of being able to see her once it rose again.
I lift my hand in a weird little wave before turning back around and walking away.
My truck is already as hot as the sun when I climb back inside, but I don’t waste the energy to roll down the windows. My house is only a couple of minutes away, and if I’m being honest with myself, I probably deserve the short-lived torture.
I knew before it happened that I shouldn’t have gone through with it, and now things are going to be insanely weird.
Sitting inside my truck, outside my house, I pull up the title of the book she was reading. The synopsis doesn’t give much away, but as always, the customers leaving the reviews give a lot of information. So much so, I’m sure the author isn’t impressed with the spoilers.
I have to download a different app to read it once I buy it. By the time I get to the second chapter, there’s more than the heat of the Texas sun making the inside of my truck hot.
It’s… filthy. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it degradation, but the male character in this book is rather aggressive in the way he talks to his client. Did I mention the man is a Dom for hire, and the women he encounters are literally paying him to do these things to them?
I pull at the collar of my shirt, trying to get a little air to my suddenly warm chest.
“Get on your knees and open that pretty fucking mouth of yours,” he growls, a sinister little smile forming on his lips as she obeys, opening wide so he can slide the cum-slick tip of his cock along her tongue.
“I swear to God,” I curse as I read that line.
Is this what she read that made her fingers caress that necklace? Is she wishing it were me that said those things to her?
If either of those things could possibly be true, then I went about the other night the wrong way.
This could possibly change so many things.
Chapter 14
Adalynn
Sunday mornings are like a tornado that comes from out of nowhere. Things are calm until about eight thirty, then the pre-church rush happens. The rush is over in less than an hour because people stop by on their way to Sunday school. Then it’s silent until about three in the afternoon when people are looking for an after lunch sweet treat.
There have been times I’ve left and then come back, but I’ve found that the lull in the day is a great time to work on trying new recipes and perfecting ones from the week before. I always make the most popular flavors, but I try my best to cycle through new ones every other week. It keeps traffic through the store a little steadier. We have some in town willing to try anything and others who get here early on Tuesdays before their favorites sell out.