Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 90475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
“He should be ashamed,” Chase adds, then gestures to a nearby booth. “We need something strong for this kind of horror story.”
“Tequila time,” Ryker remarks, then waves down a server and orders a round of shots.
When the server leaves, Ryker slides in the booth after me. It’s circular, so he’s on one side of me, Chase the other.
Shortly, the server brings three shots on a wooden board, complete with the accessories—salt and lime.
In tandem we lick, shoot, and suck.
My lungs burn and my mouth is on fire, but I’m filled with righteous energy. I’m ready to spill my own tea.
Chase breathes out hard, nodding resolutely. “All right. All the Stephen King I’ve listened to has prepared me for this moment.” He stabs his finger against the wood of the table. “Right now. Bring on the horror story.”
I don’t usually kiss and tell. No one has ever asked, and I don’t have a lot of ex-boyfriends. Just a couple others besides Jasper. I went out with a musician in college. Colin was cool and laid-back, and worked out as a sort of starter boyfriend. But after college, he moved to New York. Then, I met a sculptor on the apps and he was a lot of fun, and a lot of drama, so we burned out quickly.
Jasper came next and my family loved the outgoing guy with the dependable office job as a marketing manager. Jasper was great with my parents and wonderful with my older sister, practically wooing all of them with his life plan to settle down, have me move in, then get a house. I swear the night he met my parents they could see more diaper changing in their near future and were high on the imagined scent of baby powder in their dreams. After all, I’d been the flighty one, the wild teenager turned aimless adult who did impulsive things like adopt a three-legged dog when I happened to walk past a Little Friends adoption event in the park one random afternoon. “Can you even take care of a dog with four legs, let alone three?” Cassie had asked me when I brought Nacho home a year ago.
To prove her wrong, I enrolled him in dog agility classes, and we’re entering our first competition in a month.
But Jasper was the real proof I was getting my shit together. There I was, with a stable guy, doing what my parents had done. What Cassie was doing. Hot mess no more, they’d figured.
“He’s a good one. Be sure to keep him,” Cassie told me the night she met him.
So, I moved in with Jasper when he asked me to. He was funny enough, and reliable enough, and he liked to cook with me. So what if he lost his mind when hockey came on TV, and so what if the sex was mediocre?
Jasper said I never relaxed in bed. That I just needed to let go and I’d finally enjoy myself.
Was he right? Maybe Ryker and Chase can answer that question for me. Tonight is for no bullshit. I draw a deep breath. Here goes nothing. “I mean, sex itself was fine,” I begin, because it was good enough, I guess. It just wasn’t exciting.
Ryker snorts. “Fine is for a plain bagel when there’s no everything bagel available. Fine is a trip to the bank with no traffic. Fine is not for sex.”
“Sex should be outstanding,” Chase says, like he’s making a speech before the whole damn land. “It should blow your brains out. It should make you forget your fucking name.” Blow-your-brains-out sex sounds great in theory. But in reality? I just don’t know. Maybe it’s only for books. “So, what was the problem?”
He seems enrapt, deeply concerned by my sex woes. It’s kind of sweet.
But I’m still a little embarrassed. Maybe the average sex was my fault. “I never had an orgasm through oral. Foreplay was kind of mid,” I mutter.
What if Jasper was right? What if I was uptight between the sheets? I do think about sex a lot. “But I’m sure I just had unreasonable expectations,” I say quickly, backpedaling. “I was expecting a parade. A marching band. Fireworks. The Fourth of July. Sheet-grabbing, toe-curling, scream-my-head-off sex. The whole nine yards,” I say, and Chase’s eyes are wide. A vein in Ryker’s neck is pulsing. They both look…angry, but also aroused? I’m not sure. Maybe they’re just shocked I’ve confessed it to two strangers. I backpedal, waving a hand, wishing I could unsay those words, wishing I could take back that tequila shot too. “I’m sure it was me. I shouldn’t have expected so much. I probably read too many novels,” I say, dismissing everything. I should never have said a word. This was a mistake. “I need to…check on my dog. We’re staying with Aubrey and…” I say, needing a moment alone. “I’ll be right back.”