Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 117574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
I touch Charlotte’s cheek as I kiss her, fuck her, claim her, wordlessly confessing my love for her with each thrust and kiss and touch. As our passion escalates, she draws her legs around my waist, and I grind myself into her with increasing desperation.
“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” I murmur, as my body breaches hers. “You’re perfect.” I love you, I love you, I love you. I’ll never feel this kind of passion with anyone else, ever again, and I know it. So, I’m trying desperately to forget that and simply savor the moment.
With a loud moan, Charlotte grips my neck, stiffens, and proceeds to have an orgasm beneath me that hurtles me into a veritable seizure of pleasure. I growl through my powerful, quaking release, as Charlotte grips my ass and moans loudly.
When the world finally stops spinning, and my heart rate lowers to a pace that allows me to function, I press my lips against Charlotte’s ear and softly whisper, “You’re a unicorn.”
She hugs me to her. “So are you.”
We lie like that for a long moment. And finally, head into my shower together.
As the hot water rains down on us, we’re both feeling so relieved and carefree, so unburdened, we start singing each other silly songs. Charlotte goes first, singing a silly song about us having our dirty money a day early and taking it to Jersey on a Saturday, not a Thursday.
And when it’s my turn, I sing a parody of a boy-band song on the fly, one inspired by the *NSYNC song I just performed for her. “In a world where hearts get tangled up, mine has stayed untangled, pristine,” I sing. “But when you’re not near me, girl, my heart feels mangled, and now you’re pulling all my strings.” Charlotte loves it. In fact, she’s positively guffawing. So, I add some naked ass shaking, too, and keep on singing: “Yeah, I called the tow truck on ya, (yes, I did, yes, I did). Thought I was breaking free (I wasn’t even sorry). But now I’m saying whoopsie-daisy baby. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Yes!” she says, laughing. I pull her to me, and we enjoy a long, euphoric kiss as hot water pelts us. All good things must come to an end, however. And after a few minutes of kissing, Charlotte breaks away and says, “We’d better get to the bank. I don’t want to risk getting there anywhere near closing time.”
“Agreed.”
We hop out of the shower and quickly get dressed and grab the stuff we came for. As we head into the hallway, we hold hands, and walk to the elevator, once again like we’re floating on air. But as we’re heading out the front door together downstairs, Charlotte abruptly stops and grips my forearm.
“What?” I follow the trajectory of Charlotte’s gaze, and that’s when I see what’s spooked her: a dark-haired guy leaning against the hood of my SUV across the street. He looks kind of like the guy who sat on the bench with an ice cream cone a week ago, but I’m honestly not sure.
“I’m positive I’ve seen him before,” Charlotte croaks out, her voice tight and filled with dread. “I served him a rum and Coke on a flight with Mr. DiMarco.”
25
CHARLOTTE
Auggie and I look at each other with wide eyes. Why is that man leaning against Auggie’s SUV?
The guy waves, like he’s our friendly Uber driver at the airport. And when we don’t move, he saunters over to us, holding up his palms. “Carlo sent me. He has something important he’s got to do all day today and tomorrow morning before Bella’s birthday party, so he asked me to come out here and get the bag from you ahead of time today, so I can get back and set everything up before the party, just like Carlo talked about with you.” He waits a beat. And when Auggie and I look at each other silently and in mutual panic, he says, “Carlo told me everything, okay? Actually, I figured it out and went to him about it, and we made ourselves a side deal. But you don’t need to concern yourselves with that. All you need to know is that I now owe Carlo a big favor, and this is the way I’m gonna even the score with him—by helping you out. I’ve got no beef with either of you, okay? Carlo has an emergency, so I came to get the money, since he won’t have time to do what he was planning to do tomorrow before the party.”
Auggie nods at me, letting me know he thinks this is legit, and I’m inclined to agree. This guy wouldn’t know all the details of our arrangement with Carlo, if he hadn’t heard them from Carlo himself, exactly as he’s said.
“We don’t have the money in cash yet,” Auggie says. “We’re going to get it now from the bank.”