Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 162567 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162567 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
65
BANKS MORETTI
The way the story goes, an old friend of Ryke’s passed away some years ago. In his will, Eddie left Ryke a secluded house nestled high among trees in the Costa Rican rainforest. Eddie said the only person to love it as much as him was Ryke Meadows.
Since I got married, this hasn’t been my first trip here.
But it’s my first time without the whole Meadows brood. Just me, Akara, and a sleepy, pregnant mermaid.
“I’m not fucking tired,” Sulli refutes, fighting sleep and a yawn. We’re all naked under a canopy bed, the mosquito net around us. She’s barely slept.
The funny thing is, we could all talk for hours, say nothing for hours, mess around and make love for hours, and still it’s never enough. She’s still battling sleep.
My dumbass is still gladly staying awake.
One more minute becomes one more hour. Becomes a whole fuckin’ night and day.
“There is a liar in our bed,” Akara says to me.
I crack a crooked smile. “Should we kick her out?”
Sulli snorts, like that’d never happen, but Akara scoops her up.
“Kits!”
He drops her—gently.
Breath ejects from her lips, “Whoa.”
I laugh, and I have a hand on her belly. Six months along, the baby moves every so often, and I smile over at Akara who pretends not to look at his phone. He’s been checking on our Fitness app, which launched after Thanksgiving late last month.
Reception over the workout programs has been mostly positive. Haters gonna fuckin’ hate—but I don’t give a shit. Akara said they can go suck a lemon as their daily activity.
And according to him, we’ve surpassed the projected number of subscribers and we’re looking at a million-dollar business. Maybe more. Feels good to do something with my wife and metamour, even if we’re still full-time bodyguards to the mermaid.
We’re also still filming segments of We Are Calloway together. It took Jack an ungodly amount of patience waiting for me to spit out my words—but I did. I talked about us. The triad. How much I love Sulli and Akara. Our life together. Our future.
That feels good too.
What can I say? I’m fuckin’ proud of myself. For doing the things I didn’t think I could do.
Sulli pats the phone in Akara’s hands, trying to grab the cell. “Didn’t you decree the rule, no phones in bed?”
Originally this place didn’t have electricity or running water, but Ryke outfitted the house years ago with essentials. Just in case of an emergency. We have spotty service from a satellite dish.
But not spotty enough, or else Akara would’ve ditched the cell.
“I’m throwing out the rule,” Akara says.
She gapes. “You can’t do that.”
“I’m the boss,” he says with a teasing smile. “I can make rules and take them away.”
Sulli turns to me. “Banks, tell Kits he can’t make the fucking rules and then eliminate them whenever he likes.”
Akara is sending me a stay on my side, man glare.
Sulli is sending me stay on my side doe-eyes.
Doe-eyes are fucking me to heaven and hell, but I scratch the back of my head. “You know what, a migraine is setting in—”
“Fuck, really?” Sulli tries to sit herself up, and I catch her elbow, her breath hitches at the sudden embrace. Her gaze gliding down my chest, and I can’t help but engrain her body in my head, breasts fuller and belly swollen.
Akara thumbs her nipple, and she squirms at his touch, her eyes pinging from him to me, as we turn towards her. God, I could take her again.
And again.
But I breathe out, “No migraine. Not even a headache, Sulli.” My affliction is the thing that hammers at your heart and floods your lungs.
She smiles, then eyes my lips. I kiss her gently, sweetly, and then I whisper, “We have something for you.” Might as well give it to her now.
She’s not going to sleep anytime soon.
“Follow me,” Akara says, first one off the bed. We could go outside naked, but even the notion that someone might’ve followed us on our trek gives us pause and caution. He steps into boxer-briefs.
I pull on mine too.
Sulli ties a loose, white silk robe around her body. She follows our footsteps to the floor-length windows. The sliding glass door already wide open. Morning breeze blows through—the house among the trees is cocooned beneath palm fronds.
Birds chirp endlessly, rainforest noises alive, and floorboards squeak underneath our bare feet as we reach the wraparound porch.
Dew coats the railing, and Sulli reaches out, hanging onto a rope tethered to a tree. She’s been bummed she can’t swing on the rope, not risking that while she’s this pregnant, but she always says, one day, when the baby is here. We’ll come back.
We retreated to Costa Rica before confirming the pregnancy, and like the lake house, it’s peace away from the world and its constant hysteria.
Akara and I left the gift under a blanket outside. While he goes to retrieve the expertly wrapped thing, I grip the rope above her hand.