Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 140184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 701(@200wpm)___ 561(@250wpm)___ 467(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 701(@200wpm)___ 561(@250wpm)___ 467(@300wpm)
Misery envelops me, so I draw the blankets closer and burrow in.
Jonathan is still on the other side of the bed. He drifted away from me while we slept. I got my wish and I’m alone, but my chest still feels like caving in the more I wake up. I’m still suffocating. I didn’t escape anything.
Today, there’s a new layer of weight pressing down on me, and this one is almost too much to bear.
What have I done?
I close my eyes and try to breathe through the panic.
Jonathan’s sheets are coarse, not soft like Milo’s.
Milo.
I close my eyes and try to clear out the thoughts, the names, everything. I need to be blank, and I can’t stop my mind from running.
I manage to get my breathing under control again, but the calm is fleeting. The moment I let my guard down, thoughts and fears rush in.
Milo will never be able to look at me again.
He won’t touch me or kiss me or hold me.
He may never speak to me again.
I let his son fuck me last night. He’ll probably want me to leave and never come back.
What have I done?
I’m fighting tears when Jonathan finally makes a noise and starts moving around. He stretches, but I keep my back to him. I don’t need to know what he looks like waking up in the morning. I don’t want to memorize him the way I did Milo.
A broken heart shouldn’t still ache. When will the damn thing give up and stop feeling anything?
Jonathan gets out of bed and walks into his bathroom. He comes back a couple of minutes later.
“You awake over there?”
I nod.
“Are you hungry?”
I shake my head no.
“Thirsty?”
I nod.
“I’m gonna run downstairs. I’ll grab you a bottle of water. You want anything else?”
I swallow, trying to clear the lump out of my throat. “Will you bring my things? Milo took them to his room last night, and I can’t… I can’t go in there.”
He misses a beat, then says, “Yeah. I’ll go get them.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He takes a few steps toward the door, but he pauses before going through it. “Are you okay?”
I nod again.
He doesn’t sound like he believes me, but he says, “All right,” and leaves the room.
I close my eyes, clutching my aching tummy, and try like hell to keep my mind empty.
It’s impossible, though.
I’ve ruined everything, and in the stark light of day, I can’t look away from that awful reality.
All Milo wanted was to be there for me in the only way he knew how, and I… I pushed him away. Shoved him. Literally.
I ruined everything.
Tears well up in my eyes. I bury my face in Jonathan Granville’s blankets and try not to let them fall.
Jonathan is downstairs for a while. When he comes back up, I’m sitting up in bed with the blankets wrapped around me. I had to pee, so I grabbed the robe to put on, but as soon as I remembered him wrapping the belt around my wrists last night, I couldn’t touch it. I dropped the robe and used the blankets to cover myself instead.
Jonathan hands me the water and notices my hands are trembling. I don’t even know why. I don’t know if I’m hungry and I just don’t feel it, if it’s nerves or my emotional state.
“Why don’t you come downstairs and make me some breakfast,” Jonathan says.
He’s such an ass, but his words seem to communicate more than the expectation of me waiting on him. “Just you?”
He nods, understanding the question. “No one else is here right now.”
“Can I shower first?”
“Sure. I need one, too.”
“Oh. I didn’t mean…”
He doesn’t wait to hear me finish my sentence, just walks his ass into the bathroom and leaves the door open.
I sit there and stare at the door for a moment, too startled to feel much at all.
I listen for him to see if he’s waiting for me. The shower turns on and I ease off the bed, walking slowly into the room.
My heart is in my stomach. Jonathan is naked, his cock hanging between his thighs, his well-sculpted ass flexing as he walks. He grabs two towels out of the closet and puts them on the counter, then he looks back at me over his well-muscled shoulder.
He doesn’t say anything, just steps into the shower stall and leaves that door open for me, too.
My tummy is a mess of jumbled nerves, but I gently close the bathroom door and walk across the cool tiled floor. My hairbrush is on his counter. I don’t know why that makes my stomach sink, but I could throw up.
I shake my head, forcing all the thoughts out of it, and climb into the shower behind Jonathan.
He’s already washing up, but he nods at a second washcloth he must have grabbed for me.