Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 66767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
And then I practically dance down the hallway to the bathroom, already anticipating how nice it will be to take our hallway intensity to the comfort of my big queen bed.
This night may have started out as a disaster, but it’s going to have a happy ending.
Multiple happy endings, in fact. For the both of us.
Chapter Four
BARRETT
She closes the bathroom door behind her, and I snap back to my senses so fast it makes the world spin.
What the actual fuck…
What the hell am I doing?
Kissing Wren outside the honky-tonk was bad enough. Everything we just did against the wall was…
Well, it was incredible, but also unwise. Exceedingly unwise. So unwise, I can’t fully assimilate the un-wisdom of it at the moment.
All I know is that I have to get out of here before things take a turn for the worse again. She doesn’t hate me right now. She seems fairly happy with me, in fact, despite the raunchy things that have been spewing from my mouth for the past twenty or thirty minutes.
I head for the door, closing it quietly behind me and jogging toward the end of the driveway.
Best to make a break for it now and touch base with her in the morning.
In the morning, this will all make sense.
Or if it doesn’t make sense, at least I’ll have the sobering influence of the sun outside my window, reminding me I’m not some reckless dude bro who gets swept up in chemistry and forgets that actions have consequences.
Wren is my employee and my friend. She’s someone I depend on, who knows my business in a way even I don’t and helps me talk through difficult diagnoses and never lets me forget a relative’s birthday, and I might have just put all of that at risk for what?
An orgasm?
The best orgasm. The orgasm to end all orgasms. The one little death to rule them all.
Ignoring the inner voice—it’s clearly in league with my equally traitorous and irresponsible dick—I run faster, passing the sign Wren shot a hole in and pushing toward town.
I have to get home and get my head in order. Hopefully, after a good night’s sleep and a few cups of coffee tomorrow morning, the best way forward will present itself.
It has to.
I can’t lose Wren. The thought of it is enough to send a cramp through my stomach, a cramp that lingers all the way home, a bad omen promising that I’ve fucked around and I’m about to find out.
Chapter Five
WREN
I’m in the bathroom maybe two, three minutes, tops. I emerge with a smile and an offer on my lips to drive Barrett to pick up his truck at Drew’s in the morning, after we adjourn to my bedroom to see if banging in my bed is as fantastic as banging up against the wall.
But the hallway is empty.
“Barrett?” I call out.
The air is silent, with no sound but the late winter wind whistling through the trees outside.
“Barrett?” I call again.
I’m met by more silence.
Stomach sinking, I cross to the door and pull it open. My SUV is still there, but there’s no sign of Barrett. I stick my head out, glancing left and right, but the yard and the road are empty, too.
I’ve been ghosted.
No, not just ghosted, aggressively ghosted.
To get out of sight of the house as quickly as he did, Barrett must have sprinted away the second I shut the bathroom door behind me. The realization makes shame swell in my chest until I can barely breathe. And then I head back into the bathroom to take my birth control pill only to realize it’s still at Tatum’s house in my overnight bag.
We were supposed to have a girls’ night sleepover. That was the plan before everything went hideously awry.
Well, went hideously awry for me. Tatum is probably at Drew’s house, falling asleep in the arms of the man who loves her, a man who isn’t afraid of commitment or his feelings.
A man who would never run away and leave her wondering if maybe she’s really bad at sex and that’s the reason she’ll be spending the night—and the foreseeable future—alone.
I’ll probably have to break into her apartment to get my pills, but that’s okay. I’m an excellent lock picker—another thing I’m sure Barrett hasn’t noticed, even though I’ve had to help him get back into his office after he’s locked himself out twice—and Tatum won’t mind if I let myself in. She wouldn’t want me to end up pregnant with my Evil Bossman’s baby.
He’s not evil. He just isn’t interested in more than sex with you. And to be fair, he really wasn’t all that interested in sex. You pushed the issue. You issued the ultimatum and made the first move. In the end, you have no one but yourself to blame for how terrible you feel right now.