Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
“I’m not talking to you,” she snaps.
“What about screaming for me?”
She recoils. “Neither.”
Wrong. So wrong. “That may make business a little tricky,” I muse, taking immense pleasure from her attempts to keep me in her bad books.
“Will it be business, Mr. Ward,” she asks, “or pleasure?”
“Pleasure, all the way.”
“You do realize that you’re paying for me to have sex with you. That, in effect, makes me a hooker.”
Why does she do it to me? All the fucking time, she ruins the moment with that mouth of hers. If I didn’t want to kiss her so much, I’d sew it shut. I move forward, getting threateningly close. “Shut up, Ava. And just so you know, you will be screaming later”—I nod in approval, relaxing back—“when we make friends.”
She looks utterly exasperated. And then she laughs.
“Is something funny?”
She starts going through her diary with a heavy hand. “Yes, my life. When shall I pencil you in?”
Pencil? I don’t think so. I scan her desk and spot what I’m looking for, claiming it and holding it out to her. “I don’t want to be penciled in anywhere,” I say quietly. “Pencil can be erased.” She looks up slowly, warily, her eyes on the black marker pen. Just you try to erase me, Ava. “Every day.”
“Every day?” She laughs. “Don’t be so stupid.”
I’ve never been more serious. I remove the lid and slide her diary over to my side, making sure our hands skim as I do. She inhales. I smile.
I start working my way through, page after page, filling her diary with my name every day of the week. When I reach Friday, I smile. “You’re mine then anyway.”
Monday’s page shows a ten o’clock appointment penciled in, and to prove my point, I reach for an eraser and rub out the name. Gone. Like it was never there. Let’s see her try to rub out the marker pen.
I dip and blow across the page, smiling as Ava looks on, stuck for words. So I carry on to the next week.
“What are you doing?” she eventually asks, halting my writing.
I look up at her stunned face. “I’m making my appointments.”
“You’re not happy enough controlling the social aspects of my life?”
Controlling? I’m not controlling. There’s absolutely no control anywhere to be found.
“I thought you didn’t make appointments to fuck me?”
“Watch your mouth,” I grate. “I’ve told you before, Ava. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“For what?”
“To keep you,” I answer frankly, and if that, this, doesn’t spell it out, then I’m at a loss.
But, typical of Ava, she can’t help but let her defiance loose. “What if I don’t want to be kept?”
Listen to her. Who is she trying to convince? Herself? Me? Should I remind her of the words she murmured in the shower? Or the drunken words in the car? Nothing but complete candor will work here. “But you do,” I say. “By me. This is why I’m having such a hard time trying to figure out why you keep fighting me off.” I go back to her diary and finish penning in every single day for the rest of the year, and she remains silent the entire time.
When I’m done, I shut the book and stand, satisfied. My work here is done. “What time will you be finished work?”
“Six-ish,” she whispers, looking somewhat dazed and muddled.
“Ish,” I mimic, offering my hand. She stares at it for a time, psyching herself up. I’m doing the same, but all the time in the world wouldn’t prepare me for the reaction I have to physical contact. I jerk. She jerks, her eyes shooting to mine. How could she even try to deny that? I gently pull away, dragging my touch across her skin, my body blazing. “See?” I say quietly, and she swallows. Yes. She sees. But if I don’t get out of here sharpish, Ava’s boss and colleagues are going to get quite the show.
I’m going to have to wait a few more hours to continue proving what I’m so sick of proving.
27
I kill the rest of the afternoon drinking coffee in a nearby café after shooting to the bike store across town to pick up a few bits for Ava, as well as some new running shoes. And a few other essentials.
John has been persistently calling, and I’ve avoided him. He only calls when there’s a problem these days. I’ve enough of my own, and one in particular is scratching at my mind like nails down a chalk board.
Mikael Van Der Haus.
If he even so much as thinks about making a move on Ava, I won’t hold back. It’ll be the last thing he does. God damn it, why does this world have to be so small?
Between five fifteen and five fifty, I watch as all of Ava’s colleagues leave the office one by one. I look down at my watch, feeling impatience taking hold. Where the hell is she? A text lands from John.