Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
His hands cradled my face, calloused fingers against my skin. I had a feeling those callouses were new, that he hadn’t had them wherever he was before here. That he was smooth and polished in a way I never had been and never would be.
I grabbed his hips, pressed my fingers in, squeezing so I knew he was really there and this was really happening. We were similar in size, though I was just a bit broader than Emerson, him about two inches taller than me.
Emerson used his body to push me against the table while I fed him deep, hungry groans. He swallowed them up, taking his fill the way he didn’t do with dinner. My dick was harder than a steel post, my balls full and eager to spill my load. When he thrust his groin against mine, my hands took over, going for the button on his jeans.
Before I could get there, Emerson cursed and pulled back. “This isn’t what we agreed on. Not yet.”
“Call me crazy, but can’t you amend the agreement? You made it, after all.”
He shook his head, a half-smile on his lips, one I was sure he didn’t want there. I knew exactly what he was doing—drawing the line, keeping the parameters in place to remind me this was a business arrangement and not just two men who wanted each other. When he adjusted himself, looked at me with naked desire, I thought maybe he was reminding himself too.
“Two weeks,” Emerson said, his voice hoarse. “You can see yourself out.”
He turned, heading for the back door, but stopped when I asked, “Why can’t a nose be twelve inches long?” Emerson didn’t look at me, didn’t reply, just stood there waiting. “Because then it would be a foot.”
Somehow, I knew he was smiling when he walked away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Emerson
“Good morning,” I said, squinting, the sun bright at nine in the morning. The small, local farmers’ market was already busy, what looked like all of Ryland and the surrounding towns in attendance. It was like this every other Saturday through the warm months. The streets filled with stands, everything from homegrown vegetables to crafts.
Everyone knew everyone. They asked how loved ones were or about sick animals or talked about the work being done on a house. Everyone except me, of course.
“Mornin’,” Lydia Barnes replied. She had a large produce stand where she sold vegetables she grew herself. She also ran a women’s shelter on her farm, in connection with an organization in Charlotte, and she had up to ten women at a time with her, some escaping abusive situations, others who were homeless or needed a fresh start. She didn’t live in Ryland, but she and some of the women rotated markets they went to.
I brought Lydia eggs and milk sometimes. I didn’t need all the food my animals produced, so I donated it. Sometimes she’d use it at home to help feed everyone at her farm, and other times she’d bring it into Charlotte to help feed people at the main center. I’d also hired a few people to come out and pick up what I didn’t need.
“Got a bunch for me, huh?” Lydia asked.
“I do.” I kept my answers short. The more people got to know you, the more questions they had. I didn’t figure they’d believe me if I spelled out to them that my boyfriend had been murdered and I’d gone to trial for it. The verdict—that I was innocent—and the fact that I hadn’t done it, didn’t matter. Most considered me guilty anyway.
Lydia turned to the woman she had with her today. “Abby, can you watch the stand while I take Emerson to the truck?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I kept the eggs and milk in coolers strapped onto a dolly, pulling it as I followed along. We headed down the dirt walkway, through the middle of the market.
“This is real nice of ya to do,” she told me.
“It’s not a problem. I don’t need all this myself.”
“Yeah, but you could sell it, and you don’t.”
I chose not to respond. It made me feel like an asshole to say I didn’t need the money. I knew how many people around here struggled to make ends meet. Between what I’d earned being a private equity manager and my investments, including real estate I’d sold when I left, I had enough to last a lifetime.
We hadn’t made it far when I looked up and saw Sam walking with a woman around his age. She was pretty and petite, with short blonde hair. I hadn’t seen him since the night at my house just over a week before, when I’d basically made him my rent boy, before he’d devoured me. It had taken everything in me not to strip him bare right then, to take him on my table and then to hold him afterward because it had been so damn long since I’d touched someone that way. Since I’d felt a body against mine, the press of someone against me.