Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
I relax a little bit. But not completely. “And now? Do you still feel that way?”
He smiles devilishly as he grazes a hand down my arm. “That’s not the reason.”
“Then what’s the reason?”
“I’m obsessed with your pleasure. So why don’t we stop talking and you can sit on my face?”
With a shiver, I obey.
Later, before I turn off the light, I RSVP to the gala. I’ll see Bridger in a tux that night in a few weeks. I’ll go home with him after. Like we will too when we go to The Un-Gentleman next weekend.
That’s more than I ever imagined I’d have.
Only, I can’t help but want the before too.
And the during.
It takes me a long time to fall asleep as I lie there thinking of the consequences of my choices.
41
HOW TO ROB THE BANK
Bridger
As Harlow places the leftovers in her fridge, she’s still beaming. Glowing, even, from talking about the new installation at Petra that she’s working on. It’s a Friday night in June, and we celebrated her first full week on the job with a special dinner ordered in. There's a slice of her favorite cake on the counter for later.
“All week long, I felt like I was using my brain and my heart at the same time,” she says.
It’s an absolute thrill to hear the genuine joy in her voice, to see her experience the pleasure of a job well done. “You’re where you belong,” I say, proud of her as I set the plates in the sink. It’s our routine from spending the last few weeks together too—nearly every night.
“After all that, who knew that I would wind up working in art?” she says, amused with her own career path as she arranges cartons on the top shelf in a tiny New York fridge.
“I guess I was wrong with my predictions back at MoMA,” I tease.
“I don’t think you were wrong,” she says, closing the fridge door, then leaning against it. I’m standing opposite her in the galley kitchen. “But hearing you say how you used your degree and how you didn’t use it actually freed me. It made me see—eventually—that I could work in the art world. Just differently than I’d imagined.”
“It’s your passion. Art is your passion. And sometimes it can be your profession too.”
“So I’m having my cake and eating it too,” she says, her eyes drifting to the slice of decadent chocolate cake, but a crease forms in her brow. “Then again, it’s just the first week. First weeks are supposed to feel good, right? Like first kisses?”
I can’t resist proving her wrong. I lean in, press a lingering, tease of a kiss to her lips. A faint sigh greets my ears. Her fingers curl around my waist.
With her melting into me, I break the kiss, tilt my head. “What were you saying about first kisses being better than tenth or one hundredth kisses?”
“I was saying research. I need more research,” she says in a breathy voice.
We conduct kissing research for another minute or two, and when we stop at last, she nods to the stack of plates in the sink. “Dishes or sex? I know you hate messes.”
“That’s a trick question.”
“So, sex then. Got it.”
I shake my head, tsking her under my breath. “Harlow, with you and me, dishes are foreplay.”
She smiles mischievously. “Is that so?”
Feeling a little cocky, a lot confident, I say, “I’ll have to roll up my sleeves to do dishes.”
I start to unbutton the cuffs of my shirt.
Her jaw drops. “Now you’re playing dirty.”
“Like, I said…foreplay,” I say as I flick open another button. She draws a feathery breath.
“Let me do it,” she says, then turns down the lights in the kitchen. Her home is doing its own impression of dusky twilight, setting the mood.
I hold out my wrists. She unbuttons the right cuff the rest of the way, folding it up once, then another time. She moves to the left cuff, slowly freeing the metal button from its holder, then she grazes her fingers along my arm, over the ink curling around the books.
“You wore a sapphire-blue shirt the day my crush began,” she says, like she’s narrating the story of how we began.
“Yeah?” I ask, hungry for more of her tale.
“And then there was a ruby-red shirt. An emerald one. I noticed them all. I used to think about what shirt you might be wearing if I ran into you. If you came over. If there was a party.”
I’m about to say the clothes do make the man, but that’s a throwaway comment, and this is not a light moment. Instead, I say nothing. I just listen since she’s telling a story. “I noticed all these things about you last summer, Bridger. And then the day I broke my ankle,” she says, looking up at me, with so much tenderness my heart can barely handle it. “You wore purple and you carried me.”