Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83586 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83586 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Though we’d been hanging out for almost three months now, I hadn’t fucked her, couldn’t bring myself to do it even though she made my dick hard. But I knew I wasn’t ready to give her what she deserved, and the last thing I wanted was to lead her on.
“He did,” I finally replied. “Jasp is an idiot, but the best kinda idiot, if you know what I mean.”
She laughed again, then took a drink of her wine. She wrinkled her nose in a cute way. “Yeah, I know what you mean. What happened next?”
I finished telling her the story about me and Jasp when we’d been twenty-one. She laughed in all the right places, honest laughter too, and damn, did I have a good time with her. I liked her, wanted to keep being her friend. Wished she could make me stop loving Jasper, that I could let myself want to be with her because if it wasn’t for him, I thought we could be happy together if she felt the same.
“I’d love to meet him sometime.”
My stomach twisted up. I leaned forward, grabbed my water off the coffee table, and took a drink. “That’d be real nice.”
Kendra placed her wineglass beside mine, and then we both leaned back against the couch, her still sorta sideways and facing me.
She leaned in, pressed her apple-and-wine-flavored lips to mine. I flicked my tongue out and teased her just a second before she let me in. My body reacted the way I knew it would, heat pooling in my groin, my dick growing firm behind my fly. I wanted her; fuck, I wanted to strip her bare and lose myself in her body, get that release I hadn’t had in too long, but I couldn’t because I did like Kendra so much. Because I didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t want to do wrong by her.
Still, it was Kendra who pulled away first. “I like you, Sutton Manning.”
I gave her my best grin. “I like you too.”
Her lips were so red, and I couldn’t stop myself from focusing on them. Maybe if I did, I wouldn’t hear what I knew she was gonna say next.
“But I don’t think this is going to work…not that way. I wanted to kiss you one more time to see, but you’re holding back. You’re always holding back when we’re together.”
Fucking Jasper. I was going to kill him. Why the hell couldn’t I get him outta my damn head? Why couldn’t I make this shit go away?
I rubbed a hand over my face, groaned and leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “I’m sorry. It’s not you. You’re gorgeous. I’m attracted as hell to you, and I like you just as much as a person, a friend. I just…” Fuck. I couldn’t even say the words. I was giving up a chance with this perfect woman for something I couldn’t even say and someone I would never have.
“It’s just that you’re in love with Jasper, which isn’t a little thing at all.”
My head whipped in her direction so sharply, pain shot through my neck. My heart crawled up my throat, and I damn near puked the thing out right there on her couch. “I…” Could deny it but was so tired of denying it. I’d kept it buried in myself for years, and now it was freer, but still locked inside the prison I’d made for it. “Yes.”
“Does he know?”
I shook my head.
“You’re…?”
“Bisexual, I reckon. I’m not lyin’ when I’m with you. I like you more than I’ve ever liked anyone other than him. I just can’t stop lovin’ him. I try, but it don’t work, and I don’t want to hurt you in the process of me figuring out my shit.”
“I like you too, but we caught it early enough that we don’t have to worry about me getting hurt. Now I know we’ll just be friends, and I’m okay with that. We can still be friends, right?”
My breath whooshed out of me. I didn’t realize how much I needed that, how much I feared I would lose her completely, and that would have hurt a whole lot. I needed a friend, something or someone who wasn’t attached to Jasper. I was so thankful it got to be her. “Yeah, I want that a lot.”
“Me too, and thank God, because now I can get out of this annoying skirt and put my sweats on. I was dying over here.”
She laughed, and I did too. I could tell she was trying to put me at ease, trying not to make a big deal out of the whole bisexual thing, but now that it was out there, I needed to talk about it, needed to share it with someone before I exploded from holding it in. “I’ve never been with a guy, though…not at all. I’m attracted to ’em if I let myself be, but most of the time I don’t.”