Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 61576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
I chuckle and kiss her. Now there’s a statement every man would love to hear at some point in his life.
“Amen to that,” I reply.
I feel so alive beside Sadie. Alive in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.
It goes beyond just the sex too. There’s something about Sadie that has me thinking about the future. Something about her gives me that feeling in my chest that you get when you know you’ve met someone you’re really going to click with.
“Hey, I didn’t tell you about my job last night, did I?” I ask.
“No, you didn’t,” she replies. “Why? Did something crazy happen?”
I chuckle. “You could say that.” I take her hand and guide it to the stitches on the back of my head. “Feel that?”
Her eyes go wide. “Jake! Are those stitches? What happened?”
“Do you know the pop star Violet Keith?”
Sadie’s jaw drops, and she props herself up on one elbow. “You were protecting her last night?”
I nod. “Yup. And she assaulted me with a bat. Gave me those stitches.”
Sadie’s jaw drops and she gasps. “She did not!”
I burst out laughing and point a finger. “No, she didn’t. But I got you.”
Sadie frowns and giggles at the same time and gives me a flirtatious punch in the chest.
“What really happened, Jake!?”
Laughing, I recount the story of last night to her—from the start of the job to me getting hit by whatever it was I got hit with to Violet hitting on me and inviting me up to her room. I also tell her how I turned her down before heading to the Emergency Room for some quick stitches.
“So let me get this straight…” Sadie says slowly, as if she can’t believe it. “Violet Keith invited you up to her hotel room, most likely to fuck, and you turned her down?”
“That’s right.” I smile.
“Why would you do that?”
“Well…I was hoping this would happen, so I didn’t want to screw things up with you.”
I thought this would either flatter her and get her to cuddle up closer to me, or at least get her laughing about how crazy the whole night ended up being, but for some reason, she ends up with a strange, somewhat concerned look on her face.
Sadie stands up from the bed, goes over to her dresser, pulls out a big oversized T-shirt, and slides into it. She stands there with her back to me for so long that I actually start to wonder what’s going on.
“Sadie? Hello?” I say. “Earth to Sadie?”
This gets her attention. She turns around, but she’s looking at the ground like she’s trying to figure out a really hard math problem.
“Jake, I…what you said just now…that was really sweet…but…” Oh, boy. This isn’t good. “I kinda sorta have this rule.”
“A rule? What rule?” For the first time we met, Sadie can’t bring herself to look at me. “A no-relationship rule.”
13
Jake
For a second, I’m not sure if I heard her right.
“A no-relationship rule?” I repeat.
“That’s right.” She nods. “And…I could be wrong, but it sounds like from the things you were just saying, that that might be where you want this to go with us?”
A bitterness rises up within me out of nowhere. Wasn’t it her that came over to me with the lemon tart and invited me in for the lemonade? She was clearly flirting with me, and for what? Just so we could fuck?
And now she’s making presumptions about my intentions and saying them to my face? She may be right, but for some reason, I’m still pissed about it.
“Wait a second here,” I say. “Haven’t you been flirting with me? Did we not just have sex?”
“Yes, but hang on–” Sadie protests.
“Aren’t guys always the ones being accused of just trying to use women for sex?” I ask. “And I’m being…accused of wanting to date you or something?”
“Jake–”
“A no-relationship rule,” I say one more time, still in disbelief. I’m hurt too. I don’t really know how to process this.
“Jake, I know maybe this isn’t what you want to hear, but–”
“So what is it you want to do then, Sadie?” I ask. “Just have casual sex with guys like you’re still twenty years old? Because you’re not twenty years old anymore, you know.”
I regret what I said as soon as the words leave my mouth. Sadie looks up at me, her eyes flashing with pain. Clearly I’ve struck a nerve.
“I’m not a slut,” she snaps.
“I’m sorry,” I reply quickly. “I didn’t mean to imply that.”
“I haven’t had a man, or even sex, in two years since my ex-husband left me. And I’m well aware I’m not twenty years old anymore, Jake.”
Yeah, I shouldn’t have said that. But I want this woman so badly that the thought of a relationship with her being off limits just completely threw me off.
“Again, I apologize, Sadie.” It hurts to even say sorry to her right now. I want to yell at her. After the small connection we have had so far, I can’t even imagine how much further we could go.