Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 90075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
A week of split shifts where we didn’t see each other very much.
A week of returning home to either find him out or locked in his room.
He no longer made me smoothies in the morning. He still followed me when I went for my run, but he didn’t come close enough to make eye contact. He ate out. He didn’t answer my texts checking in on him. He completely cut me out of his life, and living with him was a thousand times worse than anything I’d endured before the big top.
If I could rewind time and refuse to let him join me and Hunter, I would.
At least if we never slept together, he’d still talk to me. Coldly and with distance but at least I wouldn’t feel as if I’d lost someone ever so dear to me.
God, that night was a massive, massive mistake.
He froze as he noticed my hands on Kate’s shoulders, and her blushing cheeks bright enough to set the lab on fire. “Eh...did I interrupt something?”
Ripping my hands from Kate, I shook my head. “Nothing. Definitely nothing.”
Kate snickered. “Just telling Ella about my latest failure in the dating scene.”
“Ah.” Nick nodded, his white coat clinging to his muscular arms, unbuttoned and hanging over his black shirt and slacks. He still wore his glasses from whatever work he’d been doing, and his hair was neatly smoothed back, thick and begging to be messed. “Dr. Fitzgerald...can I speak to you for a moment?” He shot Kate a look. “Sorry to steal her away.”
“Not at all. I’m sure you have far more interesting stories to tell her.” Kate grinned, winking in my direction.
I frowned as Nicholas raised an eyebrow then slipped back into the corridor, closing the door behind him, obviously expecting me to follow.
Doing my best to get my jangling heart and racing pulse under control, I asked, “What’s with the wink?”
“Didn’t you hear?” Her mouth dropped open. “Everyone in the staff room is talking about it.”
“Talking about what?”
Stepping into me, she lowered her voice. “Apparently, a sex circus came to town last weekend.”
I stiffened.
Oh, no.
“A-A sex circus?”
“Yeah, I wish I’d known. I would’ve so gone. I’ve had enough shitty sex to last me a lifetime. Give me someone who knows what they’re doing, and I’ll pay for it if that’s what it takes to actually get an orgasm these days.”
I laughed, even though my heart kept skipping. “So...if you didn’t go to the circus, then how...?”
“He did.” She cocked her head at the closed door. “Dr. Nicholas Davis—the unassuming molecular biologist who meditates in the staffroom and doesn’t seem to know a boob from an elbow apparently shared a threesome with a guy and a chick.”
Ice.
It rolled down my spine.
Freaking hell.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Hunter promised me no one repeated what went on in his big top. Had someone seen me? Had they recognised me being railed by Nick or Hunter? Would I be fired?
Why would I be fired?
It was consensual and on my personal time.
If people were prudes, that was their problem, not mine.
Doing my best to keep my voice level, I said, “Who’s saying such things? Can’t imagine slander is a good image.”
“Slander? Oh, no.” Kate shook her head. “It’s not slander. More like praise! Maybe a bit of envy thrown in too, but definitely not slander. Apparently Dr. Fraser was there as well. You know? The woman who looks like she has a stick up her ass? She was seen eating candyfloss off some guy’s dick.”
I swallowed hard. “And was she reprimanded? Does the company know?”
“’Course they know. Everyone’s talking about it.”
“Is she in trouble? Is Nick in trouble?”
“Trouble?” She frowned as if she genuinely couldn’t see the problem. “Who cares what people do on their time off? As long as they’re not stabbing people or being a nasty criminal, then we all deserve to blow off some steam every now and again. Don’t you think?”
She swooned against me, resting her head on my shoulder. “What I wouldn’t have given to be the lucky girl between a Nick Davis and a stranger sandwich. Bet the lucky bitch couldn’t walk after they were through with her.”
There were two things I could’ve done.
Number one: laugh politely and extract myself from the conversation.
Or two: blurt out that that girl was me.
In another life, I would’ve chosen option one.
But in this life? The one where I refused to use my vibrator because I didn’t want to give Nick the satisfaction of hearing me moaning through the walls? This life where I walked around with constantly wet knickers because I needed him more than I needed air? This life where I was dangerously close to begging Nick to reconsider just so he’d damn well talk to me?
I was jumpy, needy, and...recklessly possessive.
If people were talking about Nick as if he was some sort of sex god, then...it wouldn’t be long before women started propositioning him. Everyone knew it was always the quiet ones who were freaks in the sheets.