Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 183663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 918(@200wpm)___ 735(@250wpm)___ 612(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 183663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 918(@200wpm)___ 735(@250wpm)___ 612(@300wpm)
No, I decide. It’s not that she isn’t interested. Her answer was a spur-of-the-moment payback for embarrassing her in front of the server, though I’m certainly the one paying now as I try to decipher her intentions as she dances with . . . whatever her name was. Is she trying to make me jealous? Trying to or not, I find I am. I’m jealous of anyone taking an inch of her attention from me. As strange as it sounds and as hard as I currently am watching her sinuous movements on the dance floor, I find I don’t want her to come back to the table. Because when she does, she won’t be alone given that she’s dancing with . . . Nikki, yes, that’s it. A girl who has made it blatantly obvious she’d be happy to fuck me.
Right sentiment. Wrong girl.
Worse, I think her friend might have the same offer in mind for Holland. Over my dead body.
I throw back the rest of my drink, wondering if I would’ve been better served to have left her in the coffee shop and turned up for my birthday dinner. At least until I remember how little I was looking forward to the evening. Which means I’m where I want to be. Where I need to be. Because for the past six months, I’ve been telling friends and family I wanted nothing for this milestone birthday. But I was wrong because I want her. God, how I want her.
The beat of the music pulses through the soles of my feet as I watch Nikki throw her arms around the fascinating and petite brunette. As she does so, her gaze is all for me. She slides behind Holland, her arms snaking up the other woman’s jean-clad thighs. I’m sure it’s supposed to be a turn-on. Girl on girl. Isn’t that supposed to be every man’s fantasy? The thing about realising fantasies is that it can be a little like opening Pandora’s box: nothing is ever the same afterward. Life’s miseries visited upon all, as I can attest.
Nikki murmurs something in Holland’s ear, causing her eyes to fly comically wide. It doesn’t take a great imagination to guess that was a suggestion. Two salacious invitations in one day, Holland. I shake my head a little ruefully, biting back a budding smile. I wonder if that’s a record as well as how she’ll react to a third from me.
I want her on my knee. In my bed. Her cries ringing through the room as I press my face between her thighs.
Even if it is madness. Absolute utter madness.
Which is exactly how being near her makes me feel.
“That was so much fun!” Lost to my introspection, I hadn’t noticed the pair’s return. “Olive is such a good dancer, don’t you think?” The other woman throws an arm around Holland’s waist, her long fingernails like crimsons spots against the white cotton of her T-shirt. The pair are a study in contrasts. Two pretty faces, flushed from exertion. One full of natural beauty, the other trying too hard.
Holland and I exchange a covert look as Nikki sidles closer, her hand finding my shoulder as she slides into her seat. Or rather Holland’s seat.
“Sorry,” Holland mouths silently, pushing a wayward lock out of her face.
“You will be,” I mouth back, my eyes narrowed slits of retribution.
Holland’s eyes fly wide, her shrug seeming to say what can I do before she lowers herself onto the seat opposite.
As a general rule, I don’t suffer fools. Yet here I sit with people I neither like nor care for while trying to decide how I entice a pretty girl to make this birthday memorable.
I turn back to find Nikki uncomfortably close, her chin rested on her hand. Given that hand is still on my shoulder, she’s practically in my face. Her brows lift in anticipation, and though my mind is a beat behind, I remember she’d asked a question. The kind of question that seemed like a segue to an invitation.
“It was fun!” Holland’s interjection saves me from a reply but doesn’t save me from the woman, who inches inconceivably closer.
“I’m all about fun,” Nikki murmurs, her mouth far too close for comfort as she eyes me like I’m her next meal. I slide her hand from my shoulder, pressing it to the table as I lean away.
“Me, too,” Holland says. “Remember the time we went to the Festival of Fungus together?”
“The festival of what?” Nikki’s head whips around so fast, I’m surprised she doesn’t suffer whiplash.
“Fungus. You haven’t heard of it? Wow. Back home, it’s a pretty big deal. The Estacada festival puts the fun in fungus, right, Lyle?”
“I’m not certain that truer words have ever been spoken,” I reply.
“Hey, if you’re cousins, how come you two have different accents?”
I’m saved by the bell as my phone buzzes with a text, though not before hearing Holland say that my parents left the cult’s compound while I was still small.