Page 61 of Always Been You

Josh:As long as she needs and wants.

Matt:I’m in on camping. Let me know how much it is. Guessing we should carpool for the three ferries. Of course, my sister has to pick such a difficult place.??

Grayson:Not surprised.

Josh:Grayson, can you keep your shit with Hannah together for this trip?

Caleb:Shit with Hannah?

Matt:What did you do to her?

Grayson:Seriously guys, why do you think I did something wrong?

Caleb:Your playboy ways.

Matt:The way you seem to have no relationship with women.

Grayson:Loving the support here, guys.????Yes, Josh, everything will be fine with Hannah.

On Thursday morning,I finish packing up the remaining items I need for our road trip. Josh comes behind me and wraps his arms around me kissing my neck. “There is something I want you to do for me before we leave, babe,” he whispers against my skin and I lean back into his body, melting at the feeling of his lips on me.

“What would that be?” I ask, slightly breathless.

“I want you to download a couple of your naughty books as audiobooks for us to listen to on the car ride. I want to see what has you so fascinated with these books.”

My skin heats as a blush creeps across my cheeks and down my neck, and my body stiffens at his request. Don’t get me wrong, when it comes to the girls, we share book recommendations, and no one yucks anyone’s yum, but to share that with Josh. Some of the books I read are dark romance and some deal with kinks that I’m not sure I want him to know that I enjoy reading.

“Babe, I want you to pick the dirtiest book you can find. I want to get into it with you. Don’t worry, nothing is going to scare me.” He kisses down my neck and across my shoulder. I can feel my panties getting wetter as his lips trail over my skin. His teeth scrape the skin on my shoulder before he releases me and heads out of the bedroom.

I grab my phone off the nightstand, open my audiobook app, and find a couple of books that are on my TBR; I find a small-town romance, a couple of mafia romances, a marriage of convenience, and a single dad/nanny romance. I make sure to download them so that we can listen to them when we lose service.

When that’s done, I make my way into the living room, where Josh is packing a few things into a cooler. I watch his muscles move under the tight light blue Henley he’s wearing. He looks up at me and smiles. “All ready, babe?”

“Yup.”

“Okay, I packed the camping gear in the car already. We’re good to go.”

He closes the cooler and drags it behind him as he makes his way to the front door, grabbing his bag and tossing it on his shoulder before opening the front door for me. Once we get everything loaded in the car, Josh has me connect my phone to Bluetooth and set up a book. I select the small-town romance, thinking we should ease into this.

Our first stop is a six-and-a-half-hour drive without traffic and the book is ten hours, but listening to it at 1.5x, we should finish the book just as we arrive at the first stop.

The book plays as I look out the window, watching the passing scenery. Josh rests his hand on my thigh, his thumb moving slowly over it. The book starts innocently enough.It’s about a city girl who leaves to get away from her overbearing parents and winds up in a small town on the other side of the country. She takes a position in the office of a local construction company taking care of their accounts and she butts heads with the owner of the company, but there is something about her that draws the owner in. After a late night in the office, he drives her home and walks her to her door and he finally decides, screw it and kisses her and they tumble into her house and into her bedroom.

As the spicy scene starts, I reach over and pause the book on the screen of Josh’s car. He looks over at me. “What was that?” I can hear the confusion in his voice.

“Um… we don’t have to listen to that,” I say as I wring my hands in my lap. My entire body is warm with a mix of embarrassment and something else.

I’ve never shared my spicy books with anyone other than the girls, and now that I’m sitting in the confines of Josh’s car and the book is about to explicitly describe the characters having sex, I’m having an internal freakout. What will Josh think when he hears it? When he finds out just what it is, I sit on his couch reading every day? I shift my body and face the door, looking out the window, trying to hide myself from him as much as I can in the car. We are still on the highway through the mountains separating the lower mainland from the interior of BC.

“Babe, can you please look at me?” Josh pleads with me.

I readjust myself, but keep my eyes down, not able to muster the courage to look at him yet. His fingers come under my chin as he forces my head up. He looks at me for a few seconds before his eyes return to the road.

“I don’t want you to be embarrassed about this. I want you to feel comfortable sharing this with me. I’m not goingto judge you or make fun of you for listening to and reading these books.”

I never discussed my books with Drew because he always made it seem like reading romance was less than like it wasn’t true reading. I trust Josh, though. I know that he’s telling me the truth when he says he won’t judge me. He turns his head and looks at me for a second before reaching forward and playing the book again.

I adjust myself again, looking out the window and listening to the narrator describe the main male character going down on the female main character. Listening to the description and having the images the story conjures in my mind is getting me wet. I squeeze my thighs together, trying to quench the desire growing between my thighs.

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