Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Noah’s fingers were choking strands of his hair by now. He was more nervous than me about this article.
“Do you want me to stop?”
He shook his head rapidly.
“Okay . . . I find myself sitting in Gavin’s beautiful mansion about two months into his house arrest for assaulting a man he’d had a confrontation with at a nightclub. No one knows why Gavin punched the guy, and uncovering the details of that infamous night aren’t why I’m here. I’m here to observe Gavin in his natural habitat. To see what a multimillionaire athlete does during a football season he’s banned from when he is isolated in the Hamptons with no one to talk to but his personal assistant and occasionally members of his management team. Noah, this is boring.”
Noah jumped to his feet and grabbed the laptop. He skimmed the article faster than I would have been able to, synthesizing and analyzing the text at a speed that was sort of hot. Weird things about Noah turned me on. My attraction had turned into outright infatuation—a fact that he was starting to become very aware of. Danger zone times ten.
“Oh, get the fuck out of here,” he snarled, some of his Queens accent creeping in. “Gavin seems most comfortable around Noah—his personal assistant and a former social worker at an LGBT foundation. How the hell did he know where I worked?”
My brow crashed down. “No clue. Does he say your full name?”
“No, but still. Why does he have to basically mention me being gay?”
“Working at an LGBT foundation doesn’t make someone gay.”
“Oh, thanks, Gavin. I didn’t know that.” Noah gestured with the laptop, causing the screen to nearly swing shut. “The only reason that is worthwhile information to put in is if he wanted to make it clear I’m probably gay.”
He had a point.
“Just keep reading.”
Noah read the next few lines to himself, eyes narrowed with suspicion and distrust. He looked like me when I scanned the publications Mel and Joe were trying to force me to do interviews with—wary and skeptical about their intentions. But he was wary and skeptical for me. There were times when I tried to remind myself that he likely only spent so much time on my dick because I knew how to use it with enough skill to make him blow his load without touching his own, but moments like these made me wonder if he shared my developing . . . something. Whatever it was.
I brushed my lips to the side of his neck, and he brought up a hand to cup my jaw. Didn’t even stop reading. Just returned the touch as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Had anyone ever been like this with me? The answer was a big fat no.
“Several times throughout the afternoon, Gavin talks about how awful he is. The word miserable comes up a lot. Pissy. Grumpy. Disaffected even makes an appearance. For a guy who claims to be of few words, he has a good vocabulary.” Noah snorted. “Despite all of this harping on his own shitty personality and mean-spiritedness, Gavin spends a solid two hours reading fan mail. Ninety percent of the mail he receives is awful. Advice for him to commit suicide, quit the league or at least the Barons. Death threats from fans of rival teams. Insults about him having grown up poor with doubts about his literacy. There are many people who think he’s a witless Neanderthal but still want him to choke-fuck them. He reads all of those out loud without reaction except for a bit of anger at the people who seem to find his lack of family humorous. At one point, Gavin shook his head and looked at me. ‘I get why people don’t like me, but that shit makes me mad. They’re not just insulting me. They’re insulting every kid who grows up in the system. Saying I deserve that means they deserve it too. This is the reason why I don’t fuck with people. I may be a fucking douchebag, but I’m in good company with about ninety percent of humanity.”
Noah wound an arm around my neck and pulled me closer. Protectively. As if he could keep me from seeing the words I’d already read. I kissed his forehead.
“Gavin doesn’t read the nice letters out loud because most of them are from less fortunate kids or teenagers. He says they’re too personal to share with a stranger, which leads us to talking about his recent donation to his old high school’s football program.”
“Can we stop reading this now?” I ask, nosing at him again. “I’m horny.”
“You’re always horny. But this is work for me. Seriously. Just let me read.”
I tried to control myself as he skimmed the rest of the article. The wariness never left his expression, but some tenderness made its way in. He kept smiling and squeezing me, a total sucker for the parts Spence must have put in about me gushing over the kid who’d written me a second letter thanking me for the donation, and wishing I could have come to the school myself.