Total pages in book: 33
Estimated words: 30983 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 155(@200wpm)___ 124(@250wpm)___ 103(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30983 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 155(@200wpm)___ 124(@250wpm)___ 103(@300wpm)
I’m not sure what’s happening, but it has to be bad.
Why does it feel like I might come from mere…implications.
Still. “Dad…” I say, in warning. In encouragement. I don’t know.
“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t, it’s just…” He leans over me, pinning my lower body. Rolling himself forward with a shuddering grunt. “You grew up so fast. So pretty. Just like your mother.”
I whimper hysterically.
“Wonder if you feel the same.”
I orgasm so suddenly, I jackknife with a scream, my core convulsing violently, cloudy feelings both hot and wrong, course through me, wetting my thong until it’s sopping wet and I’ve made a mess on the desk, all while strong arms close around me, lips kissing my temples and shhhing me while my body is ransacked with wave after wave of strange relief.
Desperate to dispel the very specific, very incorrect imagery, I seek Joel’s eyes, relieved to find him there. Clinging to him desperately, needing him to make sense of what just happened. “I…I don’t know why…”
“It’s okay, angel.” He kisses me fiercely, holding the sides of my face in his hands while looking me in the eye. “You’ve got some father issues. Of course you do, after everything he’s put your through. We’re going to work them out of you. Together.” Again, he kisses me. “Okay?”
I nod in relief, throwing myself into his solid embrace.
This is where I want to be.
I’m going to stay here forever, where it’s safe.
But I don’t have that option, because Joel’s phone pings with a text a second later. One glance at the screen and his eyes are already filling with dread.
“It’s the airline,” he says, voice gravelly. “There are flights in danger of being cancelled, because of storms in the southeast. Real ones, this time.” He sighs. “They need me to come in early.”
It’s a terrible time for Joel to leave and we both know it.
I only agreed to be his girlfriend a matter of hours ago, a new position that makes me nervous as hell, not only because of my major trust issues, but because of my father’s reaction. My father. I really don’t want to think about him right now. Not so soon…after.
Joel knows my deepest, darkest secret now, doesn’t he?
It’s a secret that even I didn’t know. Not until I was in the middle of addressing it with no way out but to let my body succumb. My daddy issues are a lot more complicated than I expected. Or even knew possible. I knew I wanted Phil’s love, but I didn’t expect my repressed feelings to be so…Freudian. The psychology major in me wonders if my father, for all his tomcatting ways, became a figure in my life synonymous with sex. Therefore, when I imagine being loved by him, well…
What happened…happened.
Joel, looking tortured, starts to walk out of my apartment, but comes back for the third time to kiss me again, and I’m more than happy to accommodate him. Just like the previous two times, I end up pressed to the doorjamb, both of us moaning into the kiss.
“Hey.” He pushes our foreheads together. “As soon as I know my exact schedule, I’ll send it to you. I’m going to see you again as soon as humanly possible, Haylo.” Another long, breathless kiss. “And I’m going to speak to Phil at the earliest opportunity about us.”
My heart flip-flops happily, but there are strings holding it down, preventing it from soaring too high, too far. Joel is leaving. Leaving is leaving, isn’t it? I made excuses for my father for too long. Am I going to make them again now?
As badly as I want to believe Joel is serious about me, determined to go all in, I hold some of myself back. He senses it, too. His perceptiveness truly knows no bounds, does it?
Nor does his dominance of my senses.
My head is full of him, my body attuned to his hands, his breath.
“I’ll miss you,” I whisper, my heart heavy.
“Not as much as I’ll miss you,” he says fervently, swiping the moisture from my eyes. “Have faith in me, all right?” My dutiful nod slows when his expression darkens. “If another man so much as breathes in your direction while I’m gone, I will come back here and take this campus down, brick by brick, so I can stack them on top of his grave.”
“I can’t stop a man from breathing,” I gasp, incredulous.
“No?” He tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “I stopped breathing the minute I saw you. Haven’t taken a full one since.”
“That sounds dangerous. Are you sure you’re okay to fly?”
“Knowing it’s the only way to get back to you? I’ll manage.”
I’m beaming at Joel as he climbs into his rental car, waving at him through the windshield while he looks his fill one final time. Seeing him in the driver’s side of his car makes me think of him in the cockpit of a plane. Which gives me an idea.