Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 44725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 179(@250wpm)___ 149(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 179(@250wpm)___ 149(@300wpm)
He’s mature, fine, and experienced. He’s not old—more like a fine wine getting intense, stronger, and more handsome with age.
Just like there are degrees of twenty, I go on. Some women my age might as well be toddlers with how they behave.
This must say something about me, about my status as a daughter. After holding Mom, I shouldn’t be saying any of this to Jaxson. I shouldn’t anyway, but especially not now.
And you’re the exception, Zoey? Is that it?
Grief ages people, I reply. I had to grow up fast. Looking around at my classmates, I feel like a different species. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got friends. I’m not some freakish hermit, but that’s how it seems sometimes.
So, you’re saying I’m so immature, and you’re so mature, we meet in the middle. We’re basically both thirty.
I grin, then quickly type, Now it’s my turn for an LOL.
Send me some chapters, he replies. I want to read your work.
I will. I’ll need your email.
He sends it, and I sense that’s the end of the conversation… for now.
CHAPTER 4
Jaxson
“You got it,” Peter says over the phone when I ask him to look into Axel Todd. “I’ll let you know when I have something.”
I take a sip of my hot black coffee. Sleep was a jester last night, taunting as it danced out of my reach. Instead, I obsessed over Zoey, even reading through our text conversation.
It was the age thing I lingered on. She seemed real keen for me not to think of her as too young or myself as too old. Why would she care about that? Does she want me? If so, this is going to get far more complicated.
While this is one-sided, I can just about stifle the hungry thoughts, but if she becomes in reality what she is in my mind… Oh, damn, if she pouts those kissable lips, pushes her breasts together, whispers breathily for me to stroke my hands up her legs, between her thighs, rub at her pussy until she’s wet and ready…
“Jax?” Peter says, drawing me from my thoughts.
I can’t even share this with Peter. He was friends with Luke, too, brothers-in-arms. He’d hate me if he knew. Hell, I hate myself, but that doesn’t mean I can stop.
“Yeah?”
“I said, how’s the book going?”
“It was going well, but I had my first bout of writer’s block last night.” I take another sip of coffee, staring at the blinking cursor on my computer screen.
“Whoa, what happened?”
“Not sure. Maybe it was going by Luke’s place.” I still call it that out of habit.
“Ah,” Peter says.
Even if I can’t tell him about my feelings for Zoey, he knows what happened between Mallory and me. He knows why I haven’t visited her for years.
“How was she… apart from this Axel guy, I mean?”
“You’re asking if she still hates me?”
Peter laughs gruffly. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“I think so. She seemed pretty pissed that I was there. She offered me a drink, but she was really telling me to get the hell away from her.”
And her daughter, I mentally add.
“I’m sorry. You know it’s not your fault, don’t you?”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“You didn’t—”
“How long until you have something on Axel?”
Peter doesn’t ask about Mallory again. He knows I don’t want to speak about it.
“Not sure. It depends on a few factors. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Thanks.”
Once he hangs up, I stare at the page. I have an open document on one side of the screen and my chapter outline on the other. The outline takes the longest, and then, usually, it’s simply a matter of hammering out the words, but they still won’t come. It’s like I’ve got something unfinished on my to-do list distracting me.
Except I can’t exactly complete my list: Have sex with Luke’s daughter. Claim Zoey for life. Propose to her. Have children with her.
Christ. I’m going nuts.
My cell buzzes at the edge of the desk. I don’t usually keep it there while working, but since texting Zoey last night, I’ve become friendlier with the mobile device.
My lips lift when I see Zoey’s name on my phone. I’ve never been much of a smiler, so it’s difficult to say I smile, but it’s more than I usually experience. It’s a rush of chemicals stronger than anything manmade. It’s like there’s this certainty inside of me, telling me with complete confidence that this is the woman for me.
It’s a pheromone thing. Primal. No dating required. No hesitation necessary. I know without having to question it. I’d already be proposing if she wasn’t Luke and Mallory’s daughter. Maybe it’s a good thing she is because that would be a surefire way to end this before it begins.
Wait, isn’t that what I’m supposed to want? To end this?
You would’ve hated the class I was just in. We were talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald, lots of la-de-da literary talk.