Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
She nodded and sniffled. “Will you snuggle me?”
“Any time,” I reiterated, and wrapped my arms around her.
“It wasn’t bad,” she said, shivering. I hooked the foot of my good leg under the throw blanket at the bottom of the bed and kicked it up so I could cover her. “It wasn’t that I didn’t like it—”
“You don’t have to explain.” I tucked the throw around her shoulders. “Unless you want to.”
“It was… a lot. Today, with the denial and the thing with the driver…” Her brow furrowed. “Who was he?”
“A fuck buddy. He owns a restaurant in midtown.”
“Have we ever been there?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No. We’ll go sometime.”
She made a soft noise of affirmation and leaned her head on my chest. I stroked her hair down her back and almost thought she’d fallen asleep when she said, “I forgot about the plug.”
“Do you want help with that?”
“Not yet. I don’t want to be touched below the waist for a while.” She laughed hoarsely. “This was amazing, though. I’m sorry I ruined it with crying.”
I cupped the back of her head, threading my fingers through her hair, and she leaned into my hand with a sigh. “You didn’t ruin anything. You didn’t want to keep going. I never want you to feel like you can’t say no to me, Charlotte.”
I damn sure would never be able to say no to her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
(Charlotte)
Visiting someone’s house for the very first time is always a little strange, but when it’s an actual compound, it’s slightly more intimidating. The word conjured images of weirdo religious cults, so I was greatly relieved when we arrived in Sagaponack and found that the “compound” was a huge parcel of land housing stables, a guest house, and the biggest, most fuck-off mansion I’d ever seen in my life.
It made Matt’s mom’s house look like a two-bedroom ranch in a blue-collar neighborhood.
“How many people live here?” Matt asked as he pulled the car around the circular drive to the front door. Even he, owner of a sky palace, sounded intimidated.
“There’s the throuple, and two kids.” I added, “There was a third, but she moved out for college.”
“Packed house. I wonder how they cope in such a tiny space.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t pretend you’ve never been somewhere like this. I mean, it’s not that far off from how you grew up.”
He put the car into park and didn’t argue.
To my surprise, it wasn’t a butler who met us at the door, but Sophie, dressed in a cute sundress with a blue pattern that would match a china teacup, with big, floppy blue bows atop her shoulders. She clapped her hands in delight and hopped up and down on the balls of her bare feet as she waited for me to come up the few steps.
“You’re here!” She threw her arms around me in a bear hug.
Usually, if someone became that friendly in such a short time, I would keep my distance, but I never got a sense that it was a red flag with Sophie. Maybe it was because she was from the Midwest—I’d heard tales of what people were like out there—but she seemed genuinely happy to have made friends with me. And I got it; making friends as an adult was hard. I imagined it must have been a lot harder living in such an isolated location. Though there were plenty of rich people on Long Island, and the country’s largest metropolitan area was an hour or so away depending on traffic, the Scaife-Elwood-Ati home felt like a far-off kingdom.
“Come in, come in,” Sophie urged us, waving me through the door and hesitating to wait for Matt, who took our overnight bag from the trunk of the car.
“Sorry, we don’t have a butler. I don’t like having too many people around.” She motioned him ahead of her, and we stood in the towering foyer, taking the place in. High above the octagonal room was a skylight that flooded the space with cheerful light. The brightness continued as we moved into a sitting room with phenomenal views of the ocean and far more couches and chairs than a family of five could fill up at once.
“This must be great for entertaining,” I said, openly ogling the white-painted beams overhead. Despite its monstrous size, the house seemed to be under the impression that it was a seaside cottage.
“It is,” Sophie agreed with a decisive nod. “Although, we don’t get to do a lot of that, lately. Most of Neil’s friends are based in London, and El-Mudad hasn’t lived in the U.S. very long. He’s kind of a loner, anyway. And my friends have all started families, so they’re super busy.”
That would explain why she was so willing to bring someone new on board.
“But you have kids,” Matt pointed out.