Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Assuming he’s getting a bargain, Caleb shouts, “Deal.”
I would have worked for free just to ensure his no-touch rule was upheld, but I’m not going to tell him that.
When he thrusts his hand my way in offering, I snatch it up, then pull him in close. “I said burgers, Caleb.” He tries to renege on our deal, but I stay holding on tight. “And a verbal agreement is as binding as one in writing, so it’s too late for you to back out now.” After a final shake, I drop his hand then nudge my head to his wallet on the kitchen counter. “Meet me downstairs in ten.”
“Where are we going? It’s barely noon,” Caleb asks, slowing my trek to the door.
I don’t need to look at him to know he’s grimacing when I reply, “To buy you a sparkling G-string.”
As quickly as his grotesqueness surfaced, it is replaced with cockiness. “And you need a pitstop before we can do that?”
“Yep,” I reply before bounding out the door.
Because although a cold shower won’t extinguish the heat roaring through me, it’s the only shot I have of simmering it to a dull flame.
CHAPTER 15
CALEB
My eyes lift to Jess when she murmurs, “If you need to go to the bathroom, Caleb, go. I have no issues with nervous wees.”
She stops twisting the napkin her drink arrived with around her finger to lift her eyes to mine. They’re sparked with as much life now as they had when I shook my tuchus in front of her. I’m not referencing the private performance in the living room of my home. I am talking about the one in the dressing room of a local mall.
When I strutted out of the changing room wearing one of the undergarments recommended by a fellow ‘entertainer,’ Jess laughed so hard she snorted, leaving me no choice but to shift her focus from the strip of material crawling up my butt to something else.
Sexual distractions are easy. It’s how I generally operate when my quirks gain too much interest, but Jess’s curiosity was a little harder to divert. She seems to be able to read me, which annoys the fuck out of me.
I don’t understand myself, so how can she?
The confused crinkle popped between Jess’s brows makes sense when she asks, “You’re not a nervous pooper, are you?”
I choke on the drink I should have waited to down until after my performance. “What?”
“Some people nervous poo. It’s perfectly normal.” Her laugh is nothing close to normal. “It just makes things a little hard when you’re out in public. Everyone shits, but no one likes to admit it.” When I attempt to interrupt her, she quickly adds, “Guys don’t count. You’re gross.”
“All of us?” I wave my hand around the backstage dressing room like we’re surrounded by half of Seattle’s male population. “Or just me?”
Either completely oblivious to my tight jaw or loving it, Jess replies, “All of you.” She pulls her olives out of her drink, pops one between her teeth, then chomps down. “I have some stuff in my purse you can use, then no one will know you pooped.”
She stops ruffling through her purse when I mutter, “I don’t need to use the bathroom.”
“Are you sure?” She peers at me with an arched brow. “Because even if it isn’t a number two, you definitely need to go number one. You haven’t sat still the past thirty minutes.”
She’s right, I haven’t. But it isn’t nerves keeping my feet moving. It is the fact the bride-to-be is an hour late, and my bladder is about to burst. I accepted the bartender’s generosity with too much eagerness, hopeful it would settle my nerves. It did, but all the liquid I consumed raced through my stomach and went straight to my kidneys.
Before I can assure Jess I’ve held for longer than two hours, the bartender I mentioned earlier pops his head through the curtains. “She’s here.”
“Finally,” Jess mutters under her breath before leaping up from her chair. “I’ll get her sorted and tied up while you use the restroom.” She tosses a tiny bottle labeled VIP Poo across the room before following the bartender out.
I don’t know whether to laugh or groan when I read the instructions. You’re meant to squirt two pumps of the liquid into the toilet bowl before a bowel movement. Its special formula traps the poo’s scent in the bowl so no one knows why you’re occupying the bathroom stall for so long.
Although appreciative of her concern, this proves what I said earlier.
She truly can read me like no one else.
Regretfully.
Twenty minutes later, Jess’s head pops through the curtains. I shake my head in disbelief when her nostrils flare a second after straying to the VIP Poo bottle on the table wedged between us. Her lips twist like she’s impressed by its capabilities I didn’t test before she instructs me that everything is ready to go.