Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73817 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73817 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
He lays his hand on my back. Just that soft and caring touch encourages me, as I twist my lips and work him up. He replies with his uneven breaths that crash over me like waves off the Gulf.
“S-Seany …” he growls.
The urgency in his voice tells me he’s there.
I trade my mouth for my hand, then lay his dick over my cheek as I jerk him the rest of the way, continuing to tease the underside with my tongue. With a deep whimper, he erupts all over the side of my face, completely at my mercy as I milk every last drop out of him. Then our eyes lock. I can’t imagine what my face looks like, but I sure as hell can see his. He looks happy. Stress-free. Thankful. It’s his happiness that makes me happy. It’s the only thing that makes me happy: his happiness. This man … the goodness in his heart, which inspires me to be better, to do better …
I have to tell him.
Chapter 8 - Cooper
Did I just acquire a houseboy?
It’s nighttime. I’m behind the bar throwing together my hundredth vodka tonic for a customer, but my eyes are on the back of the room where Seany’s taken it upon himself to clean off unused tables, sweep the floors, and welcome any customers coming in.
Seriously, I’m at a loss for words.
I don’t recognize my life today compared to yesterday.
“So that’s the thief you ran off yesterday?” asks Mars, who appears out of nowhere.
My words are slow to come. “Yep.”
“And now he’s employed here?”
“Not really.”
“How do you pay him? With your nuts?”
I face her. “Why’re you here again? It’s not as busy as yesterday. Doesn’t your mom need you at the taqueria?”
“Probably, but it’s, like, way more fun here these past few days. Plus, you pay more. Working for my mom, she’s always acting like she can just ‘pay me in love’.” She rolls her eyes, then nudges me. “Hey, don’t change the subject. I asked about this sticky-fingered child you just adopted.”
“He’s not a child.”
“I still don’t trust him.” She squints at him across the room, then shrugs. “But I will admit, he does work hard.”
“He does,” I agree.
“Of course, he has to, to pay off all of the peanuts and soda he stole.”
“He was just hungry,” I point out lightly. “Can’t blame the guy for just trying to survive. The world out there is harsh enough. He needs a break, doesn’t he?”
Mars gives me a pointed look. “Seems like he stole something else, too.”
I lift an eyebrow. “What’s that?”
She skirts around the counter to make her rounds, leaving me to wonder. I continue serving customers, now and then glancing at the back of the room, still mystified by the enigma that is the eighteen-year-old-on-the-run whose name I will still firmly believe really is Seany—and whose story I will remain skeptical about.
The truth is, I don’t know what to think. It’s been way too long since I’ve been intimate with anyone, let alone a kid less than half my age. To have my self-imposed spell of celibacy broken by some intoxicatingly adorable twink that I just met yesterday is something I need time to process. He makes me confused. He makes me unsettled. He makes me sandwiches for lunch.
And he makes my heart flutter like a fucking butterfly.
He makes me feel like I’m floating everywhere I go.
He makes me spill vodka over my hand. “Fuck, sorry,” I say to a customer as I force my eyes off of Seany across the room and pay better attention to what I’m doing.
I wish I had someone I could talk to about this.
For knowing damned well everyone on the island, my list of true confidants is pretty damned short and sad.
Sometime later, I notice one of the lights hanging over the front steps outside has gone out, so instead of troubling Chase or Seany, I handle it myself. When the rush has died down enough to leave the front to Chase, I head out to the front steps with a stepladder and a bulb in hand.
It’s while screwing that bulb that I spot someone across the way, near the beach.
The sight of him causes my hand to freeze mid-screw.
I don’t believe my eyes. Is that—?
Noisy half-dressed men walk up the steps to enter the bar, for a moment blocking my view entirely, and by the time they’ve made their way inside, I’ve lost sight of the guy near the beach …
The guy I recognized … or thought I recognized.
Maybe it wasn’t him at all.
Of course it wasn’t him. How could it be? It’s been ten years since I’ve seen him. He would be twenty-eight now. I doubt I’d even recognize him so easily.
The guy who broke my heart into three pieces.
One piece he took for sport. The second he pitched into the Gulf of Mexico like garbage. The third, smallest piece, that’s what I have left, the part that still beats in my chest.