Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
I’m about to suggest we take this to a better location so I don’t have to underwhelm her with a less-than-stellar performance, but before I can, we’re interrupted for the second time. “Are you going to be much longer?” The inquirer sounds remorseful for interrupting us but desperate when she adds, “You’re not the only one who ate something they shouldn’t have.”
Usually, a comment like that would soften my dick. However, it isn’t facing the same issues tonight. Why would it when surrounded by a warmth that tastes sweeter than any dessert I’ve eaten?
I wonder how often Jess goes clubbing when she mutters, “There’s another set of restrooms next to the bar.”
I feel Jess’s cringe more than I see it when the interrupter asks, “Does it have accessible facilities?”
“I think so,” Jess replies, her tone announcing she is truly unsure. After moaning a disappointing sigh, she requests to be put down. When I do as asked, disheartened and certain my balls are about to explode, she straightens her rumpled skirt and exhales three times before she locks her eyes with mine. “I’ll be right back.”
“You’re leaving?” My tone could only be higher if my balls were in a clamp and Jess was compressing it tightly.
“I just… I can’t… I…” She stops, exhales again, then says, “I will only be a minute. I promise.” After yanking up my sweatpants to cover my semi-erect cock, she hits the open-door button. She grimaces when it must open all the way before she can slip out, but I smile. I’m not humored by the shocked faces of a handful of people waiting to use the female restroom.
I’m loving Jess’s wobbly walk.
Once Jess joins a woman who’d be in her mid-twenties in the corridor, she whacks her palm on the occupied button then twirls the stranger’s wheelchair toward the main part of the bar while muttering, “You don’t want to go in there. It isn’t pretty.”
I miss what the stranger replies. I’m too busy trying to stop the surrounding walls from closing in on me to care about her response. Jess’s honeysuckle smell is gone, left with nothing but the ghastly scent of a lemon urinal block and an aftershave I’ll never forget, and the knowledge has the demons from my nightmares surfacing faster than ever.
An involuntary shudder rolls up my spine when my shaky step away from the shadows zipping past the frosted door have me bumping into the wash basin. Washing your hands is supposed to be a cleansing routine, but I only ever feel dirty when I do it.
I’m not scrubbing them clean.
I am endeavoring to rid them of controversy and anarchy and striving to remove his scent from my skin.
As bile scorches the back of my throat, I twist the faucet to the highest setting before pumping a mammoth amount of liquid soap onto my hands.
Regretfully, the brutal scrub of my nails across my palm doubles when the lemon scent of the soap filters into my nose. I scrub and scrub and scrub until my hands are almost bleeding, and I know with utmost certainty that I won’t be finishing what Jess started in this bathroom.
The scent already has my dick withering, not to mention the ghastly smell of blood when I put my fist through the mirror above the vanity so I don’t have to face the coward standing in front of me.
CHAPTER 4
JESS
“Jessmina Lee Arkwright, what would Daddy say?”
I snatch the car key Heidi just offered me out of her hand before spinning around to face the familiar voice. When the profile of my younger sister pops into my peripheral vision, I arch a brow. “Probably the same thing he’d say to you if he discovered you out this late on a Saturday.” I bob down to Ariel’s height to press my lips to her cheek before whispering in her ear, “You only turned twenty-one last week, but only Daddy knows that was the end of your partying days.”
She bumps me with the wheel of her wheelchair. “And it better stay that way. I’m the apple of Daddy’s eye.”
“And the thorn in his backside,” Heidi jests after joining us. “How have you been, Ariel? I haven’t seen you since graduation.”
“Good. I—” I don’t know if it is my impatient huff that stops my sister mid-borefest or the constant shift of my eyes to the corridor the bathrooms are hidden down. “Do you have somewhere you need to be, Jessmina?”
Even with my wicked mind screaming, “Yes, yes, yes!” I shake my head.
My time with Caleb tonight has been out-of-this-world good, but my guilt about believing an accessible bathroom was the perfect place for a hookup because it wouldn’t be needed this late on a Saturday night keeps my feet planted firmly on the floor.
Ariel has cerebral palsy, but she is the most outgoing, affectionately opinionated woman I’ve ever met. Her condition has never once slowed her down, and it was horrendous for me to believe her love of life isn’t the same for people from all walks of life.