Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 47254 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47254 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
Not to imply that she was wishy-washy. It would be more accurate to describe my mother as an incurable romantic who threw herself into her passions. Just like me.
I’d been heartbroken when my parents divorced when I was a kid, but I knew I was lucky that they’d both prioritized me, regardless of marital discord. Mom volunteered in my elementary school classrooms, chauffeured me to band practice in high school, and applauded my solo flute performances when everyone else in the audience winced. In short, she was my champion and I adored her. However, I didn’t love her troublesome habit of periodically playing matchmaker.
In a way, it was sweet. Mom was happy and she wanted the same for me.
She married Alistair Lewis-Burton, a retired historian twenty years her senior, a few years ago and loved her new life in a renovated three-hundred-year-old former rectory on the outskirts of a village that dated back to Roman times. She’d told me she’d read countless romance novels set in bonny old England and had always dreamed of living in an ivy-covered house in the country.
If I squinted hard, I could conjure a couple of similarities with our old house in Napa where we’d been surrounded by lush vineyards under a never-ending blue sky. The rectory was situated down a narrow road with a green pasture on one side and an ancient graveyard on the other. So…I supposed they were both rather quiet locations.
For a history buff like Alistair, an incurable romantic like Mom, or someone craving a break from the fast lane, Bradford-on-Avon was perfect. For me…it was a tad too quiet. But it was a nice place to visit.
And the past few days had been perfectly nice—minus Mom’s sudden rabid interest in setting me up with the town realtor.
“Not a date, honey. Call it a tête à tête, or an information exchange. Giles’s firm has an office in Bath and he’s from the area. He’s the perfect tour guide. Shall I ask if he’s free on Saturday?”
I shook my head and started to protest when a renegade memory of being pressed against Scott hit me like a sledgehammer. I didn’t think I was in danger of getting hard while chatting with my mom in her kitchen since I’d just jerked off in the shower twenty minutes ago to a vision of his hands on me, stroking us to oblivion. Scott’s heavy breathing, his crooked smile, and that knowing look he’d given me when he licked our combined cum off his thumb.
Geez, the memory alone made me dizzy.
The craziest part of the entire episode was that I’d initiated it. Me. Theodore Belden, CPA in training.
In my quest to be adventurous and brave, I’d taken a foolhardy risk and propositioned a veritable stranger to have sex in public. I wondered afterward if we could have gotten arrested or if there were hidden cameras and someone might show up at Mom and Alistair’s home to cart off the visiting pervert and send him back where he belonged.
I’d vacillated between worrying about my soul to wondering if he’d thought about me this week. And that was just…madness. A shared flight and a hand job didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Sane people didn’t pine over handsome strangers they met on planes. I had to snap out of it.
Maybe a trip to Bath with Giles would help me get my head on straight.
I nodded slowly. “Sure. Why not?”
Mom squealed like a schoolgirl, chuckling softly as she filled the electric teakettle with water. “Yay!”
“Nothing is going to happen, Mom.”
“Sparks might fly. You never know!”
Oh, brother.
Sparks weren’t flying.
No offense to Giles. He was a nice man with a self-deprecating sense of humor and kind eyes. He was good-looking too—at least three inches taller than my five eight, with thinning light-brown hair and angular features. He spoke in a slow, measured cadence and had a habit of walking with his hands behind his back, even when the wind howled along the riverside and whipped at the hem of his coat.
I pulled my olive-green beanie around my ears, humming politely when he paused in front of the abbey and proceeded to give a brief history lesson.
“A monastery has been on this very site, dating to the seventh century. Bath was ravaged after the Normans invaded, but it was much sought-after by the bishops of the time who…”
My teeth chattered in my skull as Giles continued his lecture, pointing out the Gothic design and the stained-glass windows. I had to stop him when he went into detail about the organs, or I’d have frozen on the spot.
“Why don’t we t-take a look in-inside?” I suggested.
“Oh, yes. I’m so sorry. It’s a bit brisk. I don’t know that it will be much warmer inside, but we’ll get tea straightaway afterward.”
An hour later, we were safely tucked next to the second-story window of a bookshop—which according to my research, was a block away from Scott’s pop-up bakery.