Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 121916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Kendrick exhales and practically spits out the name. “Florence.”
“I despised her.”
“I don’t blame you. She did me dirty after my injury.”
“No, I hated her from day one. Even before she dumped your ass for the crime of getting injured.”
Kendrick looks shocked. “Why?”
“Because it was obvious she only wanted Kendrick the Future NFL Player, rather than my darling Kendrick, and that pissed me off.”
“Wow,” Kendrick says softly. “I wish you’d told me.”
“Would you have listened to me?”
His chest heaves as he looks from the road to me with burning blue eyes. “If you’d been the one to tell me? Yeah. Absolutely.”
“Oh. Really?” When he nods, I press my lips together, feeling shocked.
Another silence envelops the interior of Kendrick’s car. For a long moment, I watch his windshield wipers moving back and forth, feeling electrified for reasons I can’t figure out. Am I feeling this way simply because that orgasm in Reed’s laundry room was so damned good? Am I feeling high from getting the “no orgasm without robotic assistance” monkey off my back? Or is there something else going on? Something even bigger than all that?
“Okay, Ruby,” Kendrick says. “Here’s the deal. This fling of ours? It’s going to be all about you. Getting you off. Making sure you experience everything you’ve been denied before now.”
“Kendrick, no. That’s too much pressure. Let’s just have fun and—”
“We will. I promise. Trust me, basically being your sex therapist will be the hottest thing imaginable for me.”
“I don’t want to feel pressure, though.”
“You won’t. Please, Ruby. Don’t overthink it. Just accept that’s what we’re going to do, okay? Remember how you felt about helping me with my insomnia? That’s how I feel about this. I want to do everything in my power to show you what your body can do. Let me do this for you. It’s all I want.”
He does look pretty damned excited about this idea. And I can’t deny, I’m excited, too.
“Okay,” I say on an exhale. “But only as long it’s fun for you. And only if you promise not to make me feel pressure to perform. If I can’t get there, I can’t get there. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Pressuring you to perform is literally the opposite of what I’ll do. There’s no pressure on you, in the least. Your only job is to relax and have fun, and I promise I’ll take care of the rest.”
A ripple of excitement flashes through me. “As long as you’re into it.”
“I am.”
“When you’re not, if you feel like you’re not getting enough out of it—”
“That’s impossible. Ruby, I tasted your pussy on my fingers and came in my pants. I think I’ll get enough out of it.”
I can’t help bursting into laughter. “That’s a fair point.”
“Glad that’s settled.” He exhales slowly. “This is gonna be incredible.”
We’ve reached his house now; the rain is pouring down.
“Now, stay put, cutie,” Kendrick coos as he parks his car in his driveway. “I’m gonna come around and carry you inside so your dress and shoes don’t get wet and dirty.”
24
RUBY
As Kendrick carries me out of the rain and into his dimly lit living room, I feel like a bride. A sexy one, thanks to my dress, but a bride, nonetheless.
He sets me down carefully onto my heels, and the scent of flowers envelops me. During my stay this past week, Kendrick replaced those first vases of tulips and added a third bouquet, a colorful spray of fragrant blooms that now sits on the nearby coffee table, making the already electrified air in Kendrick’s living room feel doubly supercharged: sexy and romantic.
We’re both slightly damp from the short trip from Kendrick’s car into the house. But the rare Southern California downpour is only adding to the magical, romantic quality of the moment.
With his Adam’s apple riding up and down, Kendrick looks deeply into my eyes and brushes a lock of rain-speckled hair off my face. With a slow exhale, he wordlessly slides his palm to my cheek and plants a tender kiss onto my lips.
His lips move with slow tenderness this time. Tentatively. In a way that’s worlds apart from the ravenous mauling he gave me after leaping off that stage at Reed’s party tonight. And even more removed from all the voracious, desperate kisses he gave me while fingering me to an orgasm so deliciously. No, this time, as we stand in the middle of Kendrick’s fragrant, dimly lit living room, the sounds of rain hitting his roof and windows all around us, we might as well be sixteen and standing underneath a porchlight after our first date.
I didn’t have a boyfriend in high school. Wasn’t interested in dating at all. All of Titus’s friends were bone-headed jocks who didn’t interest me, and those boys were the only ones who ever came around. Not that Titus would have let his friends date me, anyway. If any had tried, I’m pretty sure he would have ran them off. Besides all of them, my only male interactions at school were with my friends—guys I knew for a fact weren’t interested in me like that. So, my first kiss happened at Northwestern. With Ryder. At age nineteen. Only a few weeks after my mortifying attempt to surprise Kendrick at his new college.