Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 75107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
She was quick to nestle in, leaning her head on my shoulder and sucking in a deep breath.
“Any better?” I asked.
“Little,” she admitted. She sucked in another deep breath. “You always smell like coffee.”
There was no reasoning with the part of me that was thrilled to learn she noticed something like that about me.
“You smell like sugar.”
“Sugar doesn’t have a smell,” she objected.
“Sure it does. And you smell like it. Though, you smell like berries and tequila tonight.”
She tasted like it too.
I tried to force those thoughts out of my mind, knowing if I didn’t, I’d be rock-hard within a minute. With the way she was sitting across my lap, there was no way she wouldn’t notice that.
“Too much tequila,” she said, letting out an exaggeratedly long sigh.
“Eh, just enough,” I said.
“How do you know that?”
“Because you’re happy and uninhibited, but conscious and not bent over a toilet.”
“All true,” she agreed, rubbing her cheek against my chest.
“Everything still spinning?”
“It’s worse if I close my eyes.”
“So don’t do that,” I suggested. My hand seemed incapable of staying around her hips. It drifted up and down her spine, toyed with the silky edges of her hair. “That feels nice,” she declared, making my stomach tighten.
I tried to take a steadying breath.
But I only breathed in more of that sugar-sweet scent of her.
“Mmm,” she moaned, the sound going right to my dick. “That feels even better,” she said as my fingers made little circles around her scalp.
She shifted closer, leaned more firmly against me.
And she let out several more of those little moans.
Thankfully, our stop was just a few seconds later, so Sammy and I half-carried the girls out of the train, up the steps, and back out onto the streets.
The cold seemed to revive both of them momentarily, making it easier to get them up into their apartment building.
“I’ll be back to check on you in two minutes,” Sammy said as she led her girlfriend toward another apartment.
The meaning there was clear: I will make sure you don’t hurt my friend.
I had to respect that.
“Ugh!” Stephanie grumbled, shaking her purse. “Just pick it,” she said.
“The lock?” I asked, confused.
“My purse ate my keys.”
“Yeah?” I asked, just barely holding back a smile. “Let me see.”
I took her bag as she leaned against the wall, saying something about macaroni and cheese that I didn’t quite make out as I dug through her bag to find her keyring. Sure enough, like everything else about her, it was Christmas-themed with a big elf stuffy attached to the ring.
“Show off,” she said, narrowing her eyes at me as I stabbed the key in the lock, then pushed the door open.
“Ready?” she asked.
“For what?” I asked, unable to see much of anything in her pitch-black apartment.
“This!” she said with a flourish as she threw a hand out, feeling for something. “Hold on. I just… okay. This!” she said when her hand finally found the tablet she was looking for and hit a few buttons.
Then the lights flicked on.
And I didn’t just mean her table lamps.
Nope.
The whole fucking apartment was lit in the warm glow of colored lights. On the tree, framing the windows, strung over the top of the kitchen cabinets, over the doorways.
“I know you’re a grinchy kind of guy,” she said, already kicking off her shoes, and nearly toppling over in the process. “But even you have to admit it’s pretty.”
“It’s pretty,” I agreed, glancing from the twinkling tree back to her as she—I shit you not—started to strip out of her layers. “Whoa, what are you doing?” I asked, grabbing her coat and gloves off the floor to set them neatly on the couch.
“Yeahhh,” Sammy said from the doorway. “She does that.”
“Does what? Strips when she gets home?”
“When she’s had tequila, yeah. Best to just get her in bed,” she offered.
“I’m right here,” Stephanie grumbled, trying to fiddle with her button and zipper on her pants.
“Listen, my dear,” Sammy said, moving forward to grab Steph’s hands before she could shimmy the material down her hips. “While I fully respect your desire to side hustle as a midnight ballerina, we’re going to need you to keep your clothes on right now.”
“They’re just underwear,” Stephanie grumbled, tripping over a fallen throw pillow and dropping backward onto the couch.
“Gonna get you some water,” I said as Sammy tried to refasten Stephanie’s pants for her.
With the distraction of Steph—and my seemingly overwhelming attraction to her. Even when she was belting out an off-key pop song with her (even more off-key) best friend. Actually, that shit was a lot hotter than it had any right to be.
Maybe it was just because it was so free.
I lived a very rigid life within an organization of people who mostly took themselves very seriously. Then my home, well, it was rare that people living in such economic straits let loose. Systemic poverty tensed up every muscle, ground down each drop of joy, gobbled up every bit of dopamine.