Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 95678 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 383(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95678 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 383(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
It was a pipe dream—I knew that. It was a fantasy future that people like me didn’t get. West needed someone more like himself—a successful professional who had his shit together and could talk about literature and symbolism, not someone like me who got a cheap-ass college degree online after six years of trying for it. He needed someone who had a pedigree, not a tattoo of a gang symbol buried deep under one of a cheesy-ass phoenix.
I realized West had snuck his hands under my shirt and lifted the hem to investigate the ink on my abdomen.
“Will you tell me about your tattoos now?” he asked, as if reading my mind.
Ah, there was another prime example of my being broken, flawed, and fucked up.
I swallowed. “I might need a drink for this story,” I admitted. “Except I only just got rid of my headache from last night’s drinking a few hours ago.”
“What if we pulled a ‘reverse dinner’ and loosened your lips with whatever’s in that bakery box instead?” West’s grin was mischievous, and I leaned in to drop a kiss on his lips.
“Deal. Lead the way.”
Once we were back in the kitchen, I removed the little cake from the box. I felt a little shy presenting him with a cake I’d painted specially for him, but his reaction took away my hesitation.
He looked at it reverently before glancing up at me with shining eyes. “Are you freaking kidding me? You did this? Oh my god, Nico. We have to take a picture of it for Doc.”
West scrambled over to find his phone. After texting pictures to Doc, he looked up at me with flushed cheeks.
“We’re not eating it. We can’t. It’s too pretty.”
“Oh yes we are. I’m starving and Rox makes killer cakes.”
I began searching through drawers for a knife and fork, but West tackled me to the floor before I had a chance to find them.
“What the hell?” I asked, laughing as he tried a ninja move to pin my legs between his.
“Don’t touch my cake,” he growled before leaning in to nibble on my neck. “Or I’ll have to punish you.”
His fingers were searching for ticklish spots on my ribs, and I was having trouble catching my breath. “Promise?” I gasped.
“A spanking maybe,” he said in a sultry voice. “On those tender butt cheeks of yours. Hmm… do I start with the peacock or the snakes? Who’s been naughtier?”
I felt my other cheeks heat at the suggestion. “If I can’t have cake, what can I have?”
West pinned me with his eyes. “What would you like, Nico?”
I felt my entire body coil in anticipation at the sound of my name on his tongue. It was one hundred percent sex. How the hell did he do that?
After quirking an eyebrow at him, I responded with, “Chili.”
He barked out a laugh. “No. No fucking way. Forget about it.”
We stood up laughing, and West moved to the fridge to pull out whatever it was he’d planned on cooking. It turned out to be steaks on the grill. He’d already fixed a salad and had a bowl of fruit cut up.
Once we had everything cooked and served, we sat next to each other at his heavy kitchen table. The one we’d fucked on just an hour or so before.
“You’re blushing,” he teased.
“Yeah? Well, your pupils are dilated, and it’s making me wonder if I have time to eat my dinner before you pounce on me once more,” I grumbled. “I’ll never look at this table the same way again.” I ran my hand lovingly over the satiny wood finish to the sound of West’s chuckles.
We ate quickly by unspoken agreement and left the dirty dishes for later. West pulled me over to the sitting area and settled us both under a quilt on the sofa.
“Tattoos,” he reminded me.
As if I’d forget.
I began to tell him about my original trip out west when I left town. How I’d spent most of my cash on a bus ticket to San Francisco with the hopes there would be resources for gay teens in the city. I couldn’t imagine where else to go that would be relatively safe for someone in my situation.
But when I’d gotten to San Francisco, I’d discovered things weren’t like I’d imagined. Obviously.
“I figured it out eventually,” I explained. “I found a group of homeless adults who banded together to look out for each other. They tried protecting me, but they couldn’t feed me or get me clothes or anything else I needed. And I got to a point where I convinced myself that I was horny enough to actually want to suck someone off, so why not at least get paid for it?”
I shifted on the sofa so I wasn’t facing him. He pulled my back against his chest and lay down behind me under the blanket while I continued talking. One of his arms was wrapped around my chest, and my fingers idly trailed up and down his exposed arm hair.