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)
It doesn’t stop us from making out like teenagers for an hour, her quiet cries turning into pleading moans. As if by some unspoken agreement, we never reach lower than our navels, despite the rolling of our hips and growing need.
“You scared me tonight,” she whispers into the darkness after our kisses turn calmer.
I pull her against me a little tighter, knowing that as close as she is to me right now, it’s still not close enough.
“I’m sorry. I forget sometimes that I’m a cop. It sets people on edge.”
Her fingers curl against my chest, and I don’t know how to read the reaction.
She was so supportive of me when I told her years and years ago that police work is what I wanted to do.
She encouraged me to get my degree first. Back then, I let myself imagine she was hoping I’d go to college and find something else because she was worried about me getting hurt in the line of duty. Back then, I pictured coming home to her every day from a factory job or something less dangerous, and I swear I could’ve done it. What I did during the day didn’t matter if I could just come home to her.
My delusion didn’t last very long, because she’s the one who sent me the application for the police academy that somehow lined up perfectly with my college graduation date.
Me being a cop didn’t bother her because she didn’t see me as the man coming home to her each night.
I knew I chose that line of work because something broken in me needed to be needed. I longed for people to rely on me, and being a cop put me in the position to help people when they needed it the most. It gave me that feeling of belonging when, as a child and a young man, I never had that.
“You have a key and the alarm code,” she says as if I needed the reminder.
“It didn’t feel right using them tonight,” I confess.
Silence grows thick between us, and I smile when the warm breath of her yawn infiltrates my t-shirt.
“Can I stay here tonight?” I ask, because making an assumption that might make her feel uncomfortable later isn’t the way I want to leave things.
She nods, her head movement heavy with sleep.
“You’re always welcome here, bestie.”
I can’t argue my placement. I’m under her with our legs tangled. She’s in nothing but a sleep shirt and panties, and despite not taking things too far tonight, I’m in my t-shirt and boxers. Her hand is on my chest as if measuring my heart rate, and my skin is on fire with need for her, but bestie?
That may be the position I held weeks ago, but after experiencing what it’s like to make her come, I was sort of hoping to be moved from that delegation into something a little more intimate.
Part of me urges my muscles to move, to climb out of her bed, kiss her temple, and stay right where she left me years ago, in the friend zone, but I’m a weak man, desperate for any scrap she may throw my way.
It’ll make us crash and burn eventually, but I won’t light the wick on that bomb tonight. I’m too hungry for her affection, too ravenous.
Part of me thinks I deserve better, but the loudest parts inside of me tell me to be grateful with anything she has to offer.
Chapter 24
Adalynn
I let the delusion of being able to go back to being friends live inside of me for longer than I’m proud of. It’s what made me invite him over to my house after my fertilization window closed. I think his body’s need for release is why he showed up the other night while I was in the shower.
Being friends again will never happen. It kills a small part of me, the pain of it eating away at me to the point that my stomach turns as I box up the leftover cupcakes from today, so I can run them by the police station.
Cash and I have broken so many rules. I don’t think there is one that we put in place in an effort to stay friends that we haven’t disregarded. The lines drawn have all been crossed.
The fear of losing him brings a sting to my eyes, very reminiscent of how I felt last night, seeing him standing on my front porch, fear that he was there to deliver horrible news about someone I loved.
He didn’t feel right using the key he has.
The memory of his words feel like the sharp sting of a burn, flames that singe my nerve endings.
We took things too far.
No.
I took things too far.
I allowed sex and my body’s need to control my actions. I opened my arms to him when I should’ve reminded him of the rules. I let the fantasy of a life with him cloud my judgment. I used sex to get a different type of love from him than the kind I already had, and, in the end, it’ll leave me broken and alone.