Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
The crazy thing was, I was starting to see them as mine too.
Elian - 3 months
“Hey, baby,” I said, pulling the headphone off of Elizabeth’s ear, making her jolt hard.
“Oh, hey,” she said, pulling them down to let them ring the back of her neck. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Not surprised,” I said as the sawing started up again across the hall. I could barely hear myself think over it. “How are you working with that racket?”
“The best noise-canceling headphones known to man,” she said, reaching up to pat the headphones.
“You could work at the coffee shop on the corner,” I told her, dropping down at her side.
Dimitri had been making the moves we’d been hoping for, setting up a new massage parlor in East New York, and slowly moving his apartment there as well.
It was safe for Elizabeth to be going back to normal life.
“But I can’t bring my coworkers with me there,” she said, reaching out to pet Kevin who was asleep on the arm of the couch as Richard lay on his back under one of her crossed legs, swatting at her sock-clad foot.
“How’s it going?” I asked, waving toward her laptop.
“I’m not even sure why Rico thought the meat shop needed marketing. It seems like he’s too busy to keep up most days already,” she said, having visited herself more than a few times to pick up meat for dinner.
“He’s really taken to running his own business. And you know Rico. He never does anything halfway.”
Elizabeth had settled on working freelance now that she didn’t have to worry about her bills at her fancy apartment building. She’d sub-letted the place until her lease was up in six months, and moved everything into my place instead. Not the guest room this time, either. My room. The hers walk-in closet. The empty drawers in the bathroom.
There were parts of her all around.
And I found myself smiling anytime I opened a drawer or cabinet and saw her things right there next to mine.
“Well, we finally got his logos made up, and the new website up and running. Along with his socials. I can’t imagine how busy he is going to be in the next few weeks with the holidays coming.”
“Yeah, we should make sure we get our orders in early,” I agreed, wincing as the staple gun started up across the hall, interrupted only by the occasional burst of air from the compressor.
“You know,” Elizabeth said, reaching to pull off her headphones and set them on the coffee table before climbing over my lap. “There is one perk to all that noise,” she said, leaning in to press her lips to my neck. “We don’t have to be quiet.”
That was definitely a perk, I decided, as I grabbed her, turning her and rolling her under me, my lips sealing over hers as her legs went around my hips, using me as leverage to rock against my cock.
By the time we were done, I was suddenly not so annoyed by all the noise anymore.
Elizabeth - 1 year
“There could have been a couple more oral scenes, that’s all I’m saying,” Saff said, throwing up her hands as Islah’s cheeks went bright red.
Even after a year of our monthly bookclub meetings, and Saff’s shamelessly outspoken takes on, in particular, the sexual aspects of the books, Islah still managed to get embarrassed by it.
“I mean, it’s fantasy, right?” Saff asked, reaching for the bottle of wine sitting in the middle of the table, and topping off all of our glasses. “And in my fantasies, the hero goes down on his woman more than twice in the book. That’s all I’m saying.”
“You have a point,” Lore agreed. “It’s not really even that much of a fantasy. That should be, you know, the standard.” It certainly was in my relationship.
“Exactly,” Saff said, nodding. “So, what are we reading next? I vote for the vampires. I’m getting sick of royals. Oh, poor you, you have all the money and power and you’re so sad because some douchebag doesn’t want to feel you up…”
“To be fair, the past few books have all been a lot heavier on the court intrigue than the romance plots,” Lore defended the books.
“Exactly. Why isn’t anyone being slammed back against the wall and railed so hard that all the servants in the castle feel the need to go to confessional?”
“Okay,” Lore said, nodding. “We can do the vampires. If Elizabeth is cool with that?”
“Fine with me,” I agreed, just happy to be along for the ride.
After being alone for so long, with only work connections to lay claim to, having friends was still new and exciting to me. I was always reading, thinking of how Lore was going to dissect a complicated plot point, or Saff was going to insist that the sex position the main characters engaged in was physically impossible.