Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
I rolled toward him. He gazed at the ceiling through his glasses, his hands resting on his chest.
Noticing a red spot on his elbow, I stroked it with my thumb. “You okay?”
He inspected it. “A little carpet burn.” There was this dreamy expression on his face as he assessed the damage.
“Should have been a little more careful, I guess.”
“I think that was the perfect amount of careful.” He rolled toward me, kissed my cheek, the rim of his glasses tapping my skin.
“So you enjoyed your first time?”
He smiled, glowing. “I can’t believe I never did that before. I knew there was a prostate. I certainly heard about it. I understood that it probably felt good, but it’s not exactly where my mind went to when I was married.”
“Not even experimenting a little? Come on. You had to be at least a little curious about what was going on back there. I’ve never bottomed, but I’ve played with myself enough to know what’s up there.”
“It’s not something that’s typical of straight relationships, maybe.”
I glared at him. “Come on. There’s a reason pegging’s a thing.”
“Pegging?”
“When a woman wears a strap-on. Seriously, how am I the more experienced one in this?”
He laughed before his expression turned serious. “Not too difficult, really. I haven’t…done as much as I figured a guy in a five-year relationship might have. We were very sexual in the beginning—crazy, wild, which was wonderful—but it was a very brief period of time. Then, when the affairs started, I had a difficult time even getting hard, and she would make comments… And even if I could, there was constant criticism during. The sort of things that burrowed into my brain. I sometimes wonder if that’s how she meant it or if that was just how I took it. It became almost a terrifying prospect. Usually I couldn’t even satisfy her, which led to me retreating into myself, thinking maybe that was why she needed the other guys.”
“Don’t talk like that. If there was an issue, she could have talked to you. What she did wasn’t an answer to anything.”
He nodded, but the way he did it, I could tell he wasn’t convinced.
It certainly wasn’t the sort of thing we could resolve in a quick conversation.
I did my best not to be disrespectful, given she was his ex—not ex, his wife. His whatever the hell he wanted to call her. Regardless, I didn’t trust my own feelings toward Sheila, since I could have just been jealous she’d once had his heart, but I also didn’t imagine a guy like James would have said things like that about a decent human being, someone who hadn’t torn his heart apart with such reckless abandon.
Such a loyal man. He deserved better, and I wanted to be his better.
“Anyway, it was nice to feel again…to really feel again,” he went on, and his smile returned.
“I can kiss to that,” I said before taking one, and then another. “Mmm. I think we’re going to have a very merry Christmas.”
It was hardly torture being confined to James’s place, spending our days ordering meals in or fixing them in his kitchen. It would be a short break from school, but not from studying, since I kept myself busy, learning every part of him, his tastes, his interests, in the bedroom and outside of it.
We arranged to meet DJ, Maya, Bentley, and Hanna out for dinner and then the lights.
Sitting next to him at the dinner table made it feel like the sort of date I wanted it to be. We kept our legs pressed together, the way we had at the extracurricular event the night my classmates showed up.
“Kyle, you don’t want any wine—” Maya said before pressing her lips together. “Oh. I always forget you’re still in high school.” She sipped her red wine before turning to James. “He must look older than most of the other kids, right?”
“He does look older than them, yes,” James acknowledged, and DJ piped up, “I have a bit of a game with the newbies where I ask them to guess. Usually it’s twenty-two.”
“Right?” Maya said. “No offense, James, but you look more like a student than Kyle.”
“Aw, Teach can’t help that he’s got that baby face,” I said.
“Do you have good classes?” Maya asked him. “Or do they give you hell?”
“They don’t give him hell when I’m around,” I joked.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh no. We have to go there, don’t we?” James said, and we shared the story of my beef with Brian. Everyone enjoyed it, and James finished the tale with, “But this guy’s managed to behave himself since.”
“You must go a little easier on Kyle, though,” DJ said. “I mean, you’re basically friends now.”
I knew he was basing that on the interactions he’d seen on Saturdays, but if only he knew…