Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
I kiss him, sniffling into it and half laughing, but I do kiss him back. It’s a lovely kiss, one that doesn’t become heated because this is hello, and it’s laughter and joy. It’s not about an all-consuming desire. Not yet. Also, I’m still crying even though I’m trying to stop. Becoming a hot mess at a time like this is perfectly normal. It’s perfectly fine. My heart is going to burst out of my chest.
“In that song you wrote, you mentioned a bath,” I say.
“Not because you stink, but just because it rhymed.”
Sterling’s smile is the best thing in the world. It’s so freaking big and easy right now. All his cares haven’t been washed away, but they have changed. The biggest ones have folded and crumbled, and we can take care of the others slowly with each passing day. I think that’s what my dad would advise with some of his dad wisdom. He doesn’t usually go for clichés, but he does rephrase them. He’d use the whole borrowing trouble thing isn’t worth it and tell us not to worry and just be happy in the moment. Except he’d do it in a far less cheesy way, and in the end, you’d be amazed, and you’d know he’s right because you’ve never heard anything that made so much sense before spoken so eloquently.
To think my brother hurting himself would eventually lead to me standing right here.
Yes, the years were sometimes rough, and the moments were sometimes lonely, but here I am with the man that, one day, I’m going to fall in love with. The man that, one day, I’ll probably marry again, and this time, it will be a celebration and not a secret. With the man I can see myself writing songs with, being dog parents with, traveling the world with, and doing life and becoming a family with.
“Can you think of something that rhymes with shower?” I ask.
“In an hour, but I’d rather do that with you right nower?”
I throw my head back and laugh. As far as rhymes go, that’s just about the best of the best of the best right there. But I’m not surprised because it’s coming from this man who is the best of the best of the best.
The shower is just code for wherever we can reach before we start tearing each other’s clothes off. I need this man inside me. Anywhere.
And I mean anywhere in the condo. Any room, any place, right now.
It’s been a long three weeks.
It’s been a long four years.
It’s been a long lifetime.
Chapter twenty-two
Sterling
Ikiss the heck out of Weland. It’s more than the fact that I’ve missed her. It’s more than me being happy to see her. It’s more like I’ve found the missing piece she was talking about. Not just out of my life but out of my soul. I didn’t exactly pour my heart out in that song because it really was just designed to make Weland laugh, but I’m pouring my soul out tonight. In the living room, up the stairs, and toward the bathroom.
“Should we go in?” I pant, tearing off my T-shirt.
“Nah, too messy. Too much water. Too much shower. Although…maybe after.”
“After?”
“After this.” She tackles my jeans, and I let her. She’s good at buttons. It pops right out, and she unzips them and then starts tearing them down. I do the same for her pants, tugging, pulling, ripping, tearing, shrugging, struggling, and shucking.
Before long, we’re both naked, our hands roving wildly all over each other. We kiss like we need to kiss in order to save the planet from imminent destruction, and if we don’t get to kiss level ten, then we’re doomed. I thought I was doomed once, but Weland proved to me how wrong I was. I wasn’t asleep, and my heart wasn’t dead. It was just waiting for her.
She shuts the door after us. “So we don’t scandalize the children.”
My mouth cracks open, but then I realize she’s just talking about Beans. There aren’t any kids in here. “Scandalize. I like that word. I’d very much like it if you would scandalize me.”
She blinks at me, slow and flirty and with plenty of intent behind it. “And how would I do that, good sir?”
“You could sit on my face, for starters.”
“Gah! That’s scandalous, alright,” she rasps.
“Scandalous and hot.”
“What if I smother you?”
“Then I’d more than die a happy man,” I say to her.
“Good lord. I’m not really going to do that.”
“Smother me or sit on my face?”
She blushes. I love seeing that delicate pink light up her cheeks. She’s so cute when she’s embarrassed and flustered. I step close and set my hand on her hip. She’s wearing a bra and panties, and that’s it. I still have my boxers on. I glance at the blinds, but they’re all shut tight, and the lights are out. It’s just us in here doing our thing. Doing us.