Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 67211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
“Something to eat?” he asks, gesturing to the vending machine, but I’m a little nervous now, and nothing looks really good.
I shake my head. “Actually, I’m good with just having the juice,” I say. I fumble at the top but it’s like soldered together or something because it doesn’t budge. He reaches for it wordlessly, and I watch as his huge fingers grip the small can. He pops the top and hands it back to me.
“I wasn’t suggesting, Chandra,” he says. There’s correction in his tone. A delicious shiver trills through me as my body remembers this. Him. All of it. The way he takes charge and cares for me in his calm, decided manner.
Noah. My heart aches for the man I once loved, and we’re only standing in a damn break room with a vending machine.
It’s more than that, though, and I know it. The present, right here and now, clouds the beautiful, heartbreaking memories, like frosted glass on a storefront window. All I need to do is lean in, breathe against the cloud, wipe it all away, and the memories will loom crystal clear and vivid. I can’t deal with the way my mind and body are assaulting me with memories, and I try to get a handle on things.
He leans a hip against the counter and crosses his arms on his chest. Damn, the years have been good to him. When I knew him, he was younger and thinner, and though he had the same intensely blue eyes and stern jawline, the same wide breadth of shoulders and strength of stature, he was thinner, like a sapling reaching heavenward. The years have hardened his eyes a bit, and most definitely hardened his body. I tear my eyes away from him and look at the vending machine. It blurs, though. I see wrappers and cellophane. “Just pick something,” I say with a shrug.
With a nod, he turns to me, swipes his card, then punches numbers. Little packets of food topple to the bottom of the machine. He reaches in to get them, then lays them down in front of me. There’s a cereal bar in a green package with the picture of an apple, a cello-wrapped six-pack of peanut butter crackers, and a pair of toaster pastries wrapped in a royal blue package with silver edging. I reach for the toaster pastries and grin at him. My mama refused to buy these for me, but I loved them, so when I moved out on my own, I bought them by the caseload. He always gave me shit about it.
Now he just winks, and my stomach dips.
I tear open the package, pull out an iced pastry, and take a bite large enough I can’t speak. I wash it down with orange juice, then take another bite.
“Not hungry, my ass,” he mutters. He’s gotten himself a can of coke which he swigs down before he tears open the cereal bar.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and sip the juice again. “Glad there’s a breakroom.”
“Yeah,” he grunts. “Except he somehow neglected the damn coffee.”
I don’t drink coffee myself, but I remember Noah always drank at least three cups of coffee a day.
“You always did like your coffee,” I say contemplatively, polishing off one pastry and reaching for the second. My belly churns in satisfaction.
“I did,” he says softly. “Still do. I guess some things never change.”
Chapter Six
Axle
I shouldn’t be looking at her mouth and imagining it wrapped around my cock. I like to pride myself on my self-control, but just looking at those full, luscious lips, the way she runs her tongue along the lower one when she’s contemplative...
I shouldn’t be staring at her full, gorgeous breasts, and wondering if she still has those dusky pink nipples that peak when I run my hands along her naked skin before I even touch them.
I feel myself sinking into temptation I’ve avoided for so damn long. This woman was always my kryptonite, but I’m no fucking Superman.
I joined the priesthood because I knew something was wrong with me. At least that’s what I thought in my youth. It wasn’t right to want to do twisted, sadistic things to another person. When I was in high school, I fantasized about taking girls across my lap and spanking them until they cried, cuffing their wrists, binding their ankles with rope. Fucking their mouths while their eyes were hidden behind blindfolds. It wasn’t right that I’d slip my belt off before bed and imagine slapping the leather against a girl’s full ass.
I didn’t know back then that there were other people like me.
And when I confessed my depraved cravings in the darkest recesses of the confessional, I was told to avoid the temptation, not to dwell on impure thoughts. To fill my mind with prayer. After several years of trying this advice and failing miserably, I forced myself to join the priesthood. If something was wrong with me, I’d choose a life of celibacy. I would eradicate the perverted desires from my mind and cleanse my body with the sacraments.