Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
It wasn’t because of her. Maybe I wanted to see what would happen between them with me out of the way. Maybe my pride and ego constantly shriveled under his shadow.
What I do know for sure, though, is that I was sick of thinking about it. Wanting things I didn’t know how to get, and worried that I’d always be worthless to everyone just because I meant nothing to him.
I was fucking sick of the talk, talk, talk, fucking talk in my head, and I had to go.
“Kade’s like my dad,” she tells me.
I look down, seeing her eyelashes fan in the faint light.
“Like all our dads.” Her voice is so soft. “They dominate every crowd they’re in, and when you wish you could be like that, it makes their attention feel like some gift.” She threads her fingers up the back of my neck and into my hair. “He tugged at me. And then pushed me away. Tugged again. And then ignored me. By the time I was fifteen, I would go from feeling important one minute to just being one of the guys the next. I was a kid, Hunter. I still am in a lot of ways. There are so many feelings, I don’t know what to do with them sometimes.”
So many feelings. That’s exactly what it was like. I just needed to not see him every day.
“But then we started to grow up,” she says, and I hear her voice thicken with excitement. “And you grew your hair a little longer one summer and tanned really well and always seemed to be without a shirt or shoes.”
I smile, listening to her and thinking back to what I might’ve been doing when she started looking at me.
“Looking like you just walked in from the beach in your shorts or jeans,” she goes on. “And you started to get quieter and brooding, and I got a little sad when you stopped sneaking into my bed at night.”
I tighten my arm around her, my other hand finding her thigh over my stomach. I grip it gently.
“When we reached a certain age, it felt like I should wait for an invitation,” I admit.
“And what if I’m shy?” She lifts her head up, propping her elbow up underneath her. “What if I’m as shy as you and we fumble over our own insecurities and never do this again?”
Never again…
Her breasts press into me, the warmth between her legs touching my thigh but coursing through my whole body.
“What if I don’t want to be the one chasing someone,” she asks, “and you bury the things you want inside of you like you always do, and we go to colleges far away from each other and I meet someone else?”
I curl my fingers into her skin.
“And this time next year he’s kissing me?” she continues. “And holding me?”
Images flood my brain, every muscle in my body turning to steel.
“And what if I love him?” she asks me.
I exhale hard, flipping her onto her back and rolling with her, settling between her legs. Staring down into her eyes, I guide my cock inside of her, thrusting deep.
She whimpers, tilting her head back as I slide inside again.
And again.
“I’m the one who does this to you,” I whisper.
The idea of her falling in love…
Of her wanting anyone else…
“You were never anyone else’s but mine,” I tell her.
Throwing me over, she straddles me, and I grip her hips, watching her beautiful body ride mine.
And I was never anyone else’s, either.
“Can we get pancakes?” she pleads, skipping down the stairs in front of me. “I’m so hungry I could eat my shoes.”
We stroll into the foyer, and I pull her hips back into me, nuzzling her hair. “Yes, food,” I tell her. “Lots of food.”
It’s after eight in the morning, and Sunday or not, I never sleep in. I couldn’t move her, though. She fell asleep in my arms, and that’s how we stayed until she woke up. I drifted in and out, but mostly, I just held her.
I thought about sewing, the clarinet lessons I took when I was eleven, and the statistics behind junk mail. Like it still exists. Are people really opening it? They need to stop.
I thought about anything boring just so I didn’t get hard again with her naked body curled up into mine. The cute and soft little sounds she makes were impossible to ignore.
All I wanted to do was think about her. We should never have done it without a condom. I know what she feels like without one now and putting that between us won’t feel the same.
“You’ll have to pay for breakfast,” she tells me, taking my hand. “I think my debit card is somewhere under your back seat.”
I laugh, taking her face and kissing her, about to tell her I’ll find it, but something catches my eye, and I stop, mid-kiss. Looking behind her, into the living room, I see everyone sprawled out with posters and paint.