Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
I lifted my shoulders and then let them fall. “Yeah. I don’t see why we can’t still be friends. But you’re right. It is new. It doesn’t seem that way because we’ve been forced together like this. Close quarters and all make it easy to get to know someone.” I tried to sound light. As if I were perfectly fine. “I agree it’s best that there are no benefits, as you put it. Not that I’m afraid of some attachment to you or whatever, but because it clouds things.”
The ache inside me was almost unbearable. Thinking about him never touching me again. Not having that connection like we had for those few brief moments. But it was the only way I’d survive him. And it was clearly what he wanted too. I had seen it the moment it was over.
“All right then,” he said with a forced chuckle. “Uh, then friends it is. We’ll go back to before I started, uh, touching you”—he cleared his throat—“and just, uh, be friends.”
I nodded.
He looked over at the stove, then back at me. “What about that breakfast?”
I wanted to be alone to lick my wounds and possibly grieve what I’d never had. He’d never even kissed me. How many girls could claim that? The guy who had taken their virginity never kissed them.
I shoved that thought away and nodded. Because that was what friends did.
And Than Carver was just my friend.
Forty-One
Than
I stood under the shower inside Linc’s stables and let the water pour over me. I should turn off the hot and just take a cold one. My cock sure as hell needed it. Reaching for the bar of soap, I lathered my hands before palming my dick. Just like I did every fucking morning and evening out here since I’d told Montana we would be friends without benefits. No more sex or sexual activity. Now, I showered out here twice a day because, one, using her shower meant I had to smell her, and two, she’d hear me jerking myself off.
Placing one palm against the wall, I began to stroke my hard length.
Five days of acting like I wasn’t always at least half erect, watching her, listening to her talk, waiting for one of those rare moments when she laughed. At least, it was rare for me.
Gathe had stopped by two nights ago, and I sat there, fantasizing about choking him to death while she laughed at his jokes. He’d made her eyes dance and those dimples pop one too many times. Not that I didn’t like seeing them. I fucking loved them. But I didn’t like another guy being who she aimed them at.
She’d pulled away from me. Although she had claimed we were friends, she went to bed early. Always said she was too tired for a movie in the evenings and was always working on her school shit.
I’d mentioned that she was due a break and tried to get her to go riding with me, but she quipped that the sooner she finished, the sooner I’d get my life back. I wanted to tell her I didn’t want it back, and it had been on the tip of my tongue, but I’d held it in. Linc’s warning replaying in my head.
I can’t have her. She can’t belong to me. Not for two more years at least.
And by then, by then…she’d probably be some other man’s. If he was smart, she’d have a ring on her finger.
I let go of my cock and rubbed my hand over my chest. Damn, that was painful.
In such a short amount of time she’d become all I thought about. It was verging on insanity. I got angry with anyone who interrupted my time with her. Even during the moments when she was sitting at the bar, doing schoolwork. It was just us, and I wanted it to stay that way.
The bastard who had written those notes had upped and vanished. No sign of him.
Linc had said he’d tell me if and when they had a lead on something, but right now, there wasn’t a person in the Louisiana branch who fit the profile of someone who would do this. The bottle of whiskey, however, had led us to them. I pointed that out to Linc, and he said that we’d follow Blaise’s orders. And right now, it was to wait.
I didn’t see why Linc couldn’t just ask Thaddeus where that bottle had gone. Made sense to me. It was our secret stash after all. We didn’t want that getting out. But again, Blaise had said to fucking wait. So, we waited.
I dropped my gaze to my dick. I knew if I didn’t get off now, it was going to get painful later tonight. She’d walk around in some shorts and a tank top, smelling like heaven. And I’d sit there, remembering how it had felt to be buried balls deep in her. The way she’d looked, like a damn fallen angel, giving me a taste of paradise. One I couldn’t keep.