Total pages in book: 225
Estimated words: 218500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1093(@200wpm)___ 874(@250wpm)___ 728(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 218500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1093(@200wpm)___ 874(@250wpm)___ 728(@300wpm)
“What if I do this and you can’t live with it?” I ask. “What if you can’t look at me the same way because I’m having sex with other people?”
He gives me a sad smile and I know now that this has already crossed his mind. “Better that we know now, don’t you think? A lot of people open up their relationship, Chloe. Some make it past that, and some don’t. I’m really hoping we do.”
The emotion in me wells up to near overflowing.
This is a test for both of us. Me, to see if a life with him without sex from him is enough for me. And him, to see if he can spend his life with me knowing I’m having sex with other men.
If I agree to do this, even if I find I’m okay with it, Adam might not be.
Everything could change. Whether I take him up on this offer or not.
“He’s right,” Alannah says, after flashing a smile at the bartender who hands us each another drink. “Thanks, Alex.”
“My pleasure, Alannah,” he replies, flirtation clear. He instantly strikes me as the type that would flirt with anyone and everyone to boost his chances of getting a better tip.
Her eyes bounce back to me. “Best to find out now if you can live with life as it is before you put on the one and only white dress.”
I give her a pointed look as I stir my drink with the plastic stir stick.
“You said you only wanted to wear the dress once. No, not said it, swore it.”
She’s right about that.
“Besides,” she continues, “You were worried about a boring-ever-after with Adam. This solves that problem. You’ve got a free pass to get all the kinky sex you want. Bright side?”
I just about choke on my tongue as I shoot her my best effort at an evil eye.
The fact that I bitched about our sex life being repetitive and vanilla one time, not long after we got engaged, feels like forever ago. Things were so much simpler then.
“I certainly did not refer to my relationship as a boring ever after.”
“It’s what you meant, though,” she says, then takes a long sip.
I’ve just spewed a long monologue at her with all my feelings about Adam’s hall pass idea, including telling her about the vibrator incident and the crying myself to sleep, and him turning his head away when I tried to slip him the tongue. How I can’t even make a dirty joke around him these days. How I feel like a sexual deviant. How he barely even looks at me and when he does, I know he doesn’t see me. I told her I look at him sometimes and get a big burst of affection, but I’m afraid to show it to him and get rejected. I’m feeling like the maid more than the fiancée.
As mortifying as it was to spill all that, I feel a little lighter, like I needed to get it out. Alannah has always been here for me, but I’ve been clammed up about life in general since the last several months have been so overwhelming.
“And it’ll let him know if he can handle it, too,” she adds.
“Yep. If I actually did go through with it, which I’m still not sure I could ever… it might be okay with me, but it might not actually be okay with him after all.”
“Mm,” she agrees, taking a sip.
“I mean… I don’t even think I can,” I whisper. “That’s not me. A hall pass. An unemotional hookup. Like… what?” I laugh.
She doesn’t laugh. “This could be a good place to sample your potential future,” she jerks her chin toward the space at large.
I scrunch up my nose.
She wiggles her blonde eyebrows.
“Not tonight,” I say.
“Tonight,” she corrects. “It’s perfect. He’s not expecting you home tonight, so…”
I scoff. “As if I can go from planning a lifetime of commitment to one man, a man who had his whole life blown apart, to fucking a stranger I meet in a bar just like that?” I snap my fingers. “I know it’s too much to ask that he factor intimacy into our relationship with all he’s gone through, but I can’t help but wish–”
“That he’d still wanna rock your world? Of course. And it’s not too much to ask, Chlo. This didn’t just happen. It’s been over half a year.”
“I don’t just need mind-blowing orgasms, Lan. I can get by for now with hand-holding and cuddling. Forehead kisses and for him to look at me like… like I’m more than his caregiver. He’s needed my help so much that I know it’s changed the way he looks at me.”
“You poor thing. Hate to say this, but Chloe… maybe it’s better if you do this and he decides he can’t live with it. Or if you do this and you decide it’s time to move on. On your own.”