Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 198235 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 991(@200wpm)___ 793(@250wpm)___ 661(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 198235 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 991(@200wpm)___ 793(@250wpm)___ 661(@300wpm)
I begrudgingly let him shift me from his lap so he can come off his knees and sit back before he arranges me between his thighs and starts with his bathing routine. I sigh contentedly but say nothing. And I don’t plan on instigating tub-talk, either. Not this time. This is for him to lead. Of course, my curious mind has gone into overdrive, but I will not be the first one to break the comfortable silence. Besides, I’m lapping up the affection on Central Jesse Cloud Nine, and I’m revelling in it. My Lord’s past holds no significance to our future. He has said that before and now, more than ever, I know just what he meant.
‘Are you fine?’ he asks, working the sponge around the base of my neck.
I smile down into the water. ‘I’m okay.’
I watch the water ripple, the little waves lapping around me as he moves in closer and rests his mouth at my ear. ‘I’m a little worried about my defiant little temptress.’ he whispers.
I don’t want to come over all hot and tingly, but it’s something I’ll never prevent when he’s near, let alone breathing in my ear. I push my cheek into him. ‘Why?’
‘Because she’s too quiet when there’s information to be had.’ He kisses my temple and lays back, taking me with him.
‘If you want to tell me, then you will.’
His chest jolts a little beneath me on a silent laugh. ‘I’m not sure I like what pregnancy is doing to my girl.’ His hands come over and rest on my stomach. ‘First of all, she’s developed a phobia of my cock in her mouth.’ He lifts his hips into my lower back, as if demonstrating what I’m missing. I know exactly what I’m missing, and I’m not liking it. ‘And secondly, she’s not blessing me with her forceful demands for intelligence.’
I shrug nonchalantly. ‘My Lord isn’t blessing me with his wide range of expert fucking’s, so we’re even, aren’t we?’
He laughs, and I’m a little annoyed that I’m not facing him because if I was, I know I’d see the sparkle in his eyes and the light fans at the corners. ‘But she’s still blessing me with her filthy mouth.’ He gives me a little tweak above my hipbone, and I perform a little jerk and a yelp before he lets me settle again. The silence settles, too. I know his mind’s cogs are racing because I can hear them. It’s almost like he wants me to force him into spilling, but I’m not going to. We’re in a silent stand-off.
He eventually sighs and starts circling tiny rings with his fingertips on each side of my bellybutton. ‘His name was Jake.’ He doesn’t say any more than that. He just gives me his twin’s name and says no more, and I just lie quietly on him, waiting for him to elaborate. He needs to do this in his own time and without any encouragement from me. I know that he wants me to lead on from here, but I need him to confess everything willingly. ‘You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?’ he asks. He knows, so I remain silent. And then he sighs again, my body rising and falling with him. ‘He idolised me. He wanted to be me. I’ll never understand it.’ He sounds angry, and I’m suddenly moving, being turned around to face him. I’m now on my stomach, spread all over him and looking up into green grief. ‘I can’t do this on my own, baby. Help me.’
My instincts kick in and I push myself up his body, settling higher so I can get my face in the crook of his neck. ‘Were you not alike?’ I ask. Twins must surely be alike.
‘We were the furthest away from alike you could get. In looks and personality.’
‘He wasn’t a God?’ I ask quietly, thinking maybe I ‘ve just suggested that his twin brother was ugly. I didn’t mean it like that, but it would be the furthest away from Jesse.
His hands caress my back gently. ‘He was a genius.’
‘How is that far away from you?’ I ask.
‘Jake had his brain to get him by, I had my looks and I used them, as you well know. Jake didn’t use his brain. If he did, he wouldn’t be dead.’
Oh? I take back all previous thoughts because now questions are popping into my mind left, right and centre, and I can’t hold them back. ‘How did he die?’
‘He got hit by a car.’
‘How would that be not using his brain?’
‘Because he was pissed when he staggered into the road.’
Realisation in dawning, and it is dawning very fast. I stepped into the road on Friday. I was also drunk. ‘Carmichael isn’t the only reason you don’t talk to your parents, is he?’ I ask.