Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 103428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 517(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 517(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
He has such big hands. I bet the print he’d leave on my skin would be huge.
God…my clit was starting to tingle. Seriously?
Stop, Evie. Just stop.
All thoughts finally came to an abrupt halt when he squeezed so hard that tears formed in my eyes. “Ouch! That hurts!”
He let go. “It’s out.”
I reached around and rubbed my derrière. “Jesus. Did you cut off a piece of my flesh?”
“It was deeper than I thought. I had to squeeze hard.” Merrick pointed to the cabinet next to us, under the sink. “There should be a first aid kit under there. Grab it, and I’ll put some Bacitracin on this and cover it up.”
When he was done, he gave a little smack to my right cheek. “All done.”
I stood and adjusted my shorts. “Thank you.”
“No problem. I think I need a drink after this welcome. You want one?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m just going to wash up first.”
After Merrick left the bathroom, I took a few minutes to compose myself before finding him in the living room. He’d opened a bottle of wine and was sitting on the couch. When I walked over, he slipped a throw pillow from behind his back and tossed it toward the other end. “You might want more than one of these to sit on.”
“Thanks.” I picked up the much-needed glass of wine and sat down. “It might be the first time I’m glad I have a little extra junk in the trunk. I don’t really feel it now.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you brought it up… You do have a pretty full ass for a little thing.”
“I get it from my mom. I hated it when I was younger. But the Kardashians have made it fashionable, so I’ve learned to appreciate it.”
Merrick brought his wine to his lips. “I’d say I appreciate it too, but I’m afraid I might get whacked in the head again.”
“I really am sorry for that. You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. Can’t do too much damage with a plastic toilet bowl brush. Next time, maybe try for something a little sturdier.”
“It was all I could find. And you should be glad about that.”
Merrick smiled. “True.” He sipped his wine and pointed his eyes to the coffee table. I’d left out a piece of orange sea glass when I took a shower. “Kind of ironic that you got a piece of your lucky charm stuck in your ass, don’t you think?”
I took the sea glass from the table and rubbed it between my fingers. “Don’t blame the sea glass for trouble you caused.”
“What’s the story with those anyway? How did they become your good luck charms?”
“About a year before my mom left my dad for good, he had done a number on her and we took off for a week—my mom, my sister, and me. Mom took us to this beach in Virginia that we’d never been to. It was sunny and beautiful, and one day I spent hours on the beach collecting sea glass. I remember my mom telling me she wasn’t going to go back to my dad this time.” I closed my eyes and could still feel the happiness in my chest from that day, could still smell the salt air. “I remember feeling so free and happy. I guess the sea glass just kind of stuck with me as a reminder that it was possible to feel that way. My mom did end up going back to my dad, but I never forgot the feeling I had on that trip. Still to this day, I go to the beach when I’m feeling down or need to clear my head.”
“That must be hard in New York City. Not sure I’ve ever seen sea glass on the beach. Maybe some broken beer bottles, but not anything to collect.”
I smiled. “Then you haven’t been to Glass Bottle Beach in Dead Horse Bay, Brooklyn, have you?”
“Dead Horse Bay? No, I haven’t. That’s not the most enticing name…”
I laughed. “Definitely not. But it’s covered in sea glass. The bay got its name because a lot of horse bones have been found there. It’s near the Marine Parkway Bridge, and when they built that, they used garbage to build the land up around a small island they were trying to protect. Unfortunately, they didn’t cover the trash with enough sand, so it started rising to the surface in the fifties. Every day more and more seventy-year-old trash washes up, and a ton of it is now sea glass. You have to walk with thick-soled shoes, but it’s a collector’s paradise. I go there often to comb the beach. It helps me clear my head.”
Merrick’s eyes looked back and forth between mine. “You’re definitely a unique person, Evie.”
I sipped my wine. “You’re hard to read. I can’t tell if that’s an insult or a compliment.”