Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 408(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 408(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
The new nurse is bigger than me.
I sent it. Why the fuck I’d sent it, I didn’t know. I’d just needed to connect with her somehow.
No response. I gave it a couple of minutes, and the longer I waited, the more my chest tightened up, and I fucking hated that.
Don’t go silent on me.
If she didn’t fucking respond, I was calling her as soon as her uncle got out of here.
Shiloh.
Then, finally, the dots appeared. She was texting me back.
You’re bossy.
The memory of her asking me if I was bossy and demanding in bed when she had been sixteen came back to me. Fuck, I should have left this alone.
And demanding.
I pressed Send because I wasn’t leaving it alone.
I’m well aware.
I smiled down at her words.
You were the one squeezing your legs together yesterday.
Yep, I was going there. She’d been fucking wet, and it had made me feel an insanity I hadn’t felt in a fucking long time. I had wanted her sitting on my fucking face so bad that I could hardly breathe.
Why are you doing this, Gage?
I stared at her question.
Can’t seem to stop.
I answered her honestly. She didn’t reply, and I forced myself to put the phone down.
Carmichael said his goodbyes and left. It was clear that he was in a much better mood now that Shiloh wasn’t here. I couldn’t blame the man.
“Smells like sex in here,” Doreen said bluntly. “You want to go wash the woman off now or wait until later?”
She was right. It didn’t smell like peaches and cream. I wanted it gone. It was grating on my nerves.
Sixteen
Shiloh
The next week and a half went by as if the days with Gage had never happened. Sarah came to stay at Wilder’s, and we made cupcakes. I walked with them to the park Saturday afternoon. Tuesday night, I went to dinner with Wilder and his clients. I went back to my office job for Uncle Neil. Things fell back into a pattern I was used to. The one I had made for myself that was comfortable.
Except, now, it seemed empty.
Before meeting Gage, I had been perfectly content with my life. How had only a few days changed it all? They hadn’t even been a good few days. They had been painful, confusing, and frustrating. Yet here I was, still missing this guy who had gone out of his way to make sure I knew he hated me.
I grabbed the bag of potato chips from the pantry and poured them over my rocky road ice cream, then went to watch Gossip Girl. I was on season three, and I freaking loved ice cream with potato chips. All things I would never have known if Gage hadn’t told me.
I glanced at my phone lying on the coffee table. It had taken me four full days of checking my text messages constantly to accept he wasn’t sending any more. I’d asked him why he was doing it, and he had said he couldn’t seem to stop. That was it. Nothing more. He stopped. Out of sight, out of mind for him. Wished I could do that as easily.
As if I had summoned my phone to do something, it rang. I stared at it, confused, because that was rare, then reached over to pick it up. Gage’s name lit up the screen. I glanced at the time. It was after nine. For one brief second, I considered not accepting it.
“Hello?” I said, realizing this was stupid.
“Hey.” His deep voice came over the line.
Dang, that was a powerful jolt.
I waited since he was the one who had called me.
“How’s your week been?” he asked me.
I frowned, looking down at my ice cream. Had he called to see how I was doing?
“Uh, good. Regular routine,” I replied. “How are you and the new and improved nurse?”
He chuckled. “I wouldn’t go that far. She’s a hard-ass.”
I was smiling. Dang it, why was I smiling?
“She can take care of you better.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I wouldn’t say that either.”
His tone made goose bumps break out all over my arms and legs.
“The view isn’t appealing anymore,” he added.
Yes, I was grinning like a fool. I put my bowl on the coffee table and wrapped an arm around my legs, pulling them up to my chest.
“I seem to recall your former view not appealing to you either. In fact, it made you angry.”
He let out a soft laugh. “I tend to get angry when I feel like I can’t control something.”
I didn’t work there now. Questions were allowed.
“Gage, you verbally admitted to hating me,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, I did,” he replied. “But then you weren’t you … or the you I hated.”
This was a setup for questions. “How am I different? For you, that is? I still have no idea what I did or what we were.”