Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 100275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
For the rest of the night, my gaze wanders to the bar. Fitz buys another beer and plays pool with a guy he seems to know, from the way they’re laughing and chatting.
He leaves the bar around midnight with his friend, whom I didn’t see drinking. I hope he’s the DD.
“Happy birthday, Cee. I’m heading home.” I give her a big hug, and she mumbles something incoherent. “Who’s driving her?” I look around at my coworkers.
Dr. Reichart raises her hand. “I am.” She shrugs. “I don’t drink.”
“Thanks for doing that. I’ll see everyone Monday.”
By the time I make it home, the house is dark except for the porch light. The squeaky front door doesn’t care that I’m trying not to wake anyone. Hopefully, Maren and Will are heavy sleepers.
What about Fitz? Did he make it home?
I listen for any sign of him upstairs. What if something happened and his friend took a different route and that friend wasn’t fit to drive?
Removing my heels to keep them from clicking along the wood, I pad toward the back door, but my brain won’t stop worrying about Fitz. Spinning around, I decide to ease my mind by checking on him. I tiptoe up the stairs, stopping when I hit the squeaky one. After listening for a moment, I continue to the top and creep toward Fitz’s room.
His open door sends my nerves into panic mode. If he were home, it would be closed.
Before waking Will and Maren, I make sure Fitz isn’t passed out on the floor, choking on his vomit.
As I approach his bed, the knot in my stomach tightens. It’s still made. He’s not home.
I turn, running into a dark, monstrous figure. The bogeyman in the flesh. My heels fall from my hands as I gulp down one breath after another to hold back my scream. Adrenaline hijacks my heart; it might explode. If I were eighty, I’d be a goner.
“Booty call?” Fitz asks while I breathe behind my cupped hand.
A sliver of streetlight finds his bare chest, and my gaze slides south a few inches to his unbuttoned and unzipped jeans.
Panic turns into rage, and I shove him. “What are you doing?” I whisper yell.
“Me?” He chuckles in a hushed tone.
“You about scared—”
“The piss out of you?”
“I was making sure you made it home alive.”
“That’s sweet of you.”
I can’t read his tone, probably because everything is muffled by my raging pulse.
“How can I repay you?” He looms over me, lips curled into a smile that’s as ambiguous as his tone. “Are you staying?” He nods to the bed.
My eyes begin to flare, but I temper my reaction by forcing a slow, calming breath through my nose. “I’m pretty good at taking care of things myself. Nobody knows me like . . . me.” It bears repeating: I’m not drunk, but I sound like it. Did I really just tell Fitz that I’m an expert at masturbating?
His grin swells. “Well, damn, Jaymes. I’ve never gotten that response before.”
I roll my eyes before plucking my shoes off the floor. “You’re so drunk.”
He pops his lips several times. “I could be.”
I try not to giggle, knowing he won’t be like this in the morning. He’ll eat me for breakfast with one look, and that look will give him the upper hand again.
A creak sounds from the hallway. Fitz pulls me into his chest, walking us several steps to the left so we’re not in the line of sight.
One of the bathroom doors closes.
At first, we don’t move, despite my hands, cheek, and torso being pressed to his half-naked body. I don’t know about him, but I’m a tinderbox. If he tried to kiss me, I wouldn’t stop him.
Warmth floods my body, reaching my toes and the tips of my tingling fingers that ache to curl into his flesh. If he lets go of me, I might pass out from this lightheadedness.
The toilet flushes, and thirty seconds later, Will or Maren exits the bathroom. When we hear the distant click of a shutting door, Fitz releases me.
“Thanks for worrying about me,” he murmurs.
I take a step back and pump my fists to get a little feeling back into my hands, but I don’t look at him. “Of course,” I say with my sweetest voice, too sweet.
I need him to question my sincerity the way he makes me question his.
I need to get a grip and shut this shit down.
I need . . . an orgasm.
“Nighty night, Fitz.” I scrounge every last bit of confidence in my body and blow him an exaggerated kiss.
His lips part in the dim light, brow tight. And that’s how I know he feels it (whatever it is) too.
This cannot happen.
Chapter Seven
CALVIN
I can’t relax in my own home.
Am I to blame? Sure. But this is getting ridiculous. Jamie’s taking “revenge is best served cold” to a new level, and she’s using her body and my attraction to her as new weapons.