Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 128812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
He was always my greatest weakness, and I have sat and thought about the exact second we first interacted a million times. It wasn't at school. He's two years younger than I am, and we ran in a different circle of friends.
It wasn't some sort of business gathering for our parents. The Harmonds and Jenkins were always business rivals, and each family avoided the other at all costs.
I've never been able to pinpoint when we got involved. It's as if that memory is gone for some reason. It’s as if my mind won't let me remember it, so I can't dissect the millions of ways I could've acted differently to prevent me from spending so many hours of my life with him stuck in my head.
My pulse kicks up as the smells swirl around me. Half of me wants to confront him, and the other half wants to avoid him at all costs, despite the obvious way he's trying to draw me out of the room.
I'm aware enough to know that the man could easily be making himself dinner, and his actions have little or nothing to do with me, but why this meal? Why this first night we're alone together?
What exactly does he think he's going to achieve?
Frustration swims through me as I turn to the tiny window facing the road with every intention of opening the damn thing, but I notice there isn't a screen on it. I'll be damned if I invite a damn bear to the party. Not that a screen would keep such a determined animal out of the house. Hell, if a bear wanted to get in, it could easily just lean its weight against the front door and gain easy access to everything we have inside.
Pacing in this small room isn't an option, and that's the only thing that has me opening the bedroom door and stepping into the living room. It has nothing to do with whether the man has made enough food for both of us, or with any desire to see him at all.
At least that's what I tell myself as I look toward the kitchen, noticing first his back rather than the food he's preparing.
Zayne was always rail-thin as a teen. He was so skinny that I once heard him complain that it was difficult to find pants that fit without having to custom-order them. They were either too big in the waist to fit the length of his legs, or they were too short if the waistband fit.
He doesn't seem to have a problem these days. The man has filled out in ways I never would've imagined.
His back muscles ripple as he works at the counter, the strength in them evident through the thin shirt he's wearing. I catch myself swallowing down the need that begins to form in my gut, blaming the scent of the food for that ache deep inside me.
It's clear that denial and I are going to become very good friends with this job, and what happened last night needs to go right into that fucking box in my head where I have put everything else that involved Zayne Harmond. I realize the extent of my challenge when my brain doesn't get the command, and my cock begins to grow heavy in my jeans.
Sex with women has only ever been mediocre at best, something I could go without.
And here this motherfucker is, doing nothing more than making something to eat, and all I want to do is bury my cock inside of him, something we never even got close to as teens.
I don't know who to hate more, him for just existing or myself for the way this man brings out a side of me that I've always hated. I don't hate the fact that there's an attraction there or that I'm aroused by a man. I hate that he's the only man I've ever been attracted to. In a moment of desperation, on a night when I couldn't get his memories to fade enough to function, I sought out another man, thinking that's what I needed. But my cock wouldn't work, no matter how much attention I got from the other man.
The realization that it was one man in particular that I wanted has eaten at me for years. The one man who would ultimately destroy any goodwill I've earned with my parents was the one my body wanted. It's as if the universe has had it out for me from birth. As if being born during an emergency C-section after a car accident that killed my biological dad and ultimately my mom days later wasn't a horrific enough beginning in this life. Whatever cosmic shit has to line up to ruin a lifetime seems to follow me around.
"Are you going to eat, or are you just going to stand there and stare at me?"