Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 29029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 145(@200wpm)___ 116(@250wpm)___ 97(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 145(@200wpm)___ 116(@250wpm)___ 97(@300wpm)
Will we eat? Or will Jenna want to jump right into…the service I’m providing?
If that’s the case, that’s what we’ll do. This is for her. I love her, and I’ll do anything I can to help her. The fact that I’m preparing her to have sex with other men is squeezing the life out of my heart, but I’ll deal.
That’s how much this woman means to me.
Then a knock on the door.
I open it, and before me stands a goddess.
My breath catches.
She’s wearing the prom dress.
Jenna is wearing her prom dress. Not only is it a gorgeous light violet, but it sparkles with sequins, and it stretches over her body, leaving very little to the imagination. It hugs her hips, nips in at her waist, and curves over her breasts showing just enough cleavage to make my cock take notice.
Oh, hell. My cock would take notice if Jenna were wearing a paper bag.
I’m not sure how long I stand gaping before she says, “Have I truly rendered you speechless?”
“I’m sorry. Come on in. I didn’t expect you to be wearing…that.”
“I never got to wear it that night. Can you believe it? It still fits.”
“Indeed it does.” I force myself not to stare at her boobs.
My cock is already responding. Not that I imagined it wouldn’t.
“You look good,” she says.
“I should be wearing a tux.”
I dressed down on purpose. Old jeans, a blue-and-white striped button-down untucked, bare feet. I haven’t shaved in a few days, and I didn’t put any product in my hair.
I hate product anyway. Mimi liked it, so I used it.
Now I’m done.
Still, I should have put in more effort. This is the woman I love, after all, and dressing down doesn’t change that.
“I made a light supper for us. I wasn’t sure if you’d be hungry. And I have a bottle of Chardonnay.”
“You got anything stronger?”
I raise my eyebrows. Stronger? She wants stronger? “I have a couple kinds of bourbon, some tequila.”
“Bourbon,” she says. “Will you join me?”
“Yeah, of course.”
I head to my freestanding bar and pour each of us a couple fingers of the amber liquid. “You want any ice?”
“Just two small cubes.”
I grab the ice from the freezer and bring the drinks into my living area where she’s already taken a seat on my couch. I hand her the bourbon on the rocks.
She swirls around in the glass and then takes a sip. “That’s smooth. What is this?”
“Buffalo Trace. You like it?”
“Yeah. I never tasted bourbon until I got home. My father drinks it, and I asked for a sip of it. I was surprised how much I liked it.” She takes another small sip.
“It’s been my drink of choice since I turned twenty-one.” I take a drink. And then I don’t know what to do. Should I sit next to her. Across from her in a chair? I finally decide to sit next to her on the worn leather couch…but I keep my distance.
She sighs then. “So much I’ve missed of your life.”
I chuckle. “Knowing that I like bourbon isn’t missing a lot of my life.”
“But it is. You didn’t like bourbon back in high school, and neither did I. I wish I could sit here and just have you tell me everything.”
“It would take a long time,” I say. “But I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Promise? Promise you’ll tell me everything, but you won’t ask me anything?”
“I promise. I will never ask you anything about your time away—”
She grips her glass so tightly her knuckles whiten. “Time I was held captive against my will, Max. Don’t call it my time away. It wasn’t a fucking vacation.”
“Jen, I didn’t mean—”
She loosens her hold on the drink. “I know that. I’ve got to stop doing that. But don’t be afraid to tell it like it is, Max. Anything less than that cheapens what I went through.”
“I’m just not sure how freely I can speak with you.”
“You’ve never had a problem speaking freely with me.”
She thinks she’s speaking the truth, but she’s not. For most of our friendship, that was true, but senior year—the year I fell in love with her—I did not speak freely. I was saving it for prom night. And I will always wonder now, if I’d told her before, would it have changed anything? Maybe she and I would have spent the day together, and she wouldn’t have been able to take that babysitting job. And then she never would’ve been kidnapped. She never would’ve disappeared.
What if…?
“For the most part,” I say, “I’ve always spoken my mind with you, for sure.”
“Then don’t stop now. Please. Tell it like it is. That’s the best thing you can do for me. That…and have sex with me.” She reddens a bit then, drops her gaze from mine.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed, Jen. We’ve already decided that’s what we’re going to do.”