Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Noah’s smile faded a little, but he covered it quickly. “Hey, that’s awesome. I love that they care so much. I should have known they wouldn’t just let you sit here by yourself on Thanksgiving.”
“They try to do it every year since both Simeon and Marcus try to see their own families. They invite me, but I’m not trying to intrude.”
“I’m glad Mel and Joe care so much then. Their catered dinner sounds much better than what I had in mind.” The forced smile turned a little naughty. “Well, maybe not.”
I wanted more than anything to know what had caused his lips to turn up at the sides and his eyes to glint. He was a dirty boy in bed, and I loved it when he was vocal about what he wanted. Even more so once he was worn out and messy but still demanding another round.
“Fuck them. I’ll blow them off and spend the day with you.”
“No,” he said. “That’s rude.”
“Does it look like I give a fuck about rudeness?”
“You give a fuck about people who give a fuck about you,” Noah countered. “Just do the dinner.”
This was awful. The mental image he’d put in my mind of us eating random shit all day and watching football while sprawled on my couch or in the bed was epic. Especially when you added sex.
“You could stay over on Wednesday,” I ventured. “And then stay for dinner on Thursday?”
“With Joe and Mel?”
“Yeah.”
Noah gave an emphatic shake of his head complete, with hands waving in front of him. “That’s not just out of my lane. It’s out of my area code.”
“Oh, come on.”
“‘Oh, come on’ nothing, Gavin. I don’t feel comfortable with that.”
“Why?” I challenged. “You’re intimidated by some rich bastards? The same guy who strolled up to Joe’s office and gave me the side eye the whole time? Who told me football was stupid and that I wasn’t a god?”
Noah bit the inside of his cheek but didn’t succeed in hiding a smirk. “That was different.”
I yanked him against me. “Yeah. It was different because back then I thought I could do without you. Now I know I can’t.”
Noah went still in my arms. He tilted his head back, studying me, before slanting his gaze away. A spike of tension went through him, but he quietly said, “I’ll think about it.”
***
Noah
I’d planned to leave the day before Thanksgiving, but I fell asleep face down on the bed in the guest room with my cell phone still propped between my neck and shoulder. It had come to my attention that before hiring me, Joe had booked Gavin for a series of appearances once his house arrest ended. Unsurprisingly, Gavin had growled and sneered before asking me to cancel everything. Which resulted in a particularly unfortunate conversation with an airline who refused to credit the ticket.
Gavin had scoffed and said to leave it alone, but the broke boy from Queens still living in his father’s apartment could not let it slide. There was zero way in hell I was giving up on a nearly two-thousand-dollar refund without a fight. Except for falling asleep before I’d even been able to put up much of a fight. That had been a slight snag.
The shrill screech of my alarm startled me out of sleep, which is when I realized I’d not only stayed the night before and was now trapped in Westhampton with limited-running LIRR on Thanksgiving Day, but that I’d also failed to finish the phone call. There had been a time early on when I’d wondered how much Gavin and me sleeping together would affect my actual job, but I’d thought there would be conflicts of interest. Tension due to the power dynamic.
There had been none of that, for the most part. We’d carried on as usual except for him always coming up behind me and groping me into submission, which almost always led to sex. Sex so addicting that I craved the end of my workday like I was waiting to get my next fix. It was why I’d started going lax on my self-set rules, and why my workday wound up extending since at least two hours were spent hanging out with him when I needed to be doing something else.
With a groan, I rolled out of the uncomfortable position I’d been caught in and stumbled to the bathroom. I was groggy and sore, and the prospect of pounding hot water from the multiple shower heads was delicious. Once I was inside the glass stall, I pressed my head to the wall and let the water beat down on me.
Was Gavin up yet? Maybe he took a morning off from his workout routine on holidays. He’d not broken that routine once in the four months I’d been working for him, which was admirable, but also infuriating, since I’d failed to follow suit despite his constant goading. There had been nights when we’d stayed up for hours kissing or having sex or even just watching television together, but he always got up at the same time, without fail. Even after I’d started crashing in his room.