Page 11 of Gene

Her cheeks went red, and she shook her head. She definitely needed to get checked out by a doctor, but not because she shivered from pleasure from him saying good girl. Gene couldn’t know that.

“Then why did you shiver? Are you okay?” he asked again.

Before she knew what was happening, he set his lips on her forehead, and she froze.

“You don’t feel warm to me. How about you take a couple more sips of your water.” He pulled back and let go of her face.

Sammi whimpered as his touch disappeared. Both of their eyes went wide, and she quickly looked in a different direction and closed her eyes.

How could she whimper like that in front of both of them? Why couldn’t she be normal?

She was touch-deprived. Not by choice, but her brother didn’t do hugs, and she didn’t know many other people who could just hug her without asking too many questions. Having Gene’s lips on her was sweet torture. She wanted more, but she knew she couldn’t have it.

This was off-limits, no matter how much she wanted it, craved it. It would always be out of reach, a fantasy since he was her boss. But also because she had so much going on in her life that she had no clue how it would pan out.

Were the Springfield Sinners going to take her when they couldn’t pay off her brother’s debt? Was she going to have to strip in front of men, be forced to have sex with them?

Those were the rumors she had heard about the Springfield Sinners when they moved into town. And now it was becoming a reality. She never expected her brother to come to her, explaining that he owed a large debt to them, that if he didn’t pay, they were going to take her instead of him.

They were both adults, not living together, and yet she got dragged into it against her will. Now, everything she earned that didn’t go on her bills was going toward paying off that debt. She didn’t know how long they had until they came knocking on her door to take her, but she was determined to pay it off before it came to that.

“Boss,” Nolan spoke. “Her water bottle.”

Gene looked at her and made a tsk sound several times. “Were you distracting me, hoping to get out of that question?”

She shook her head. “No.”

It really wasn’t her intention to distract him by that. She was just very concerned and wanted to make sure that he was okay and knew what to look for. Was it an added bonus that he got distracted and forgot he’d asked that question? Yes, it was.

“Are you lying to me?” He tilted his head to one side.

“Promise I’m not. I was genuinely worried about you,” she quietly said.

“So, repeat what you said.”

She sighed. There was no way of getting out of this. Not when Nolan was here and would continue to remind him what they were talking about.

“That I forgot mine at home?” she said.

“I think her exact words were ‘I don’t have one anymore’ but I could be wrong,” Nolan offered.

Sammi glared at him, knowing that’s exactly what she’d said. She shouldn’t have said that. It made it seem like she wasn’t going to bring it to work, which is true, but they didn’t need to know that.

“I didn’t mean that. I just meant that I left it at home. I was running a bit late, and I knew the walk was going to be hard work,” she rushed out.

The walk to the farm seemed to be getting longer every single day. Probably because she was so exhausted, nauseous, and out of sorts.

“You walk here?” Gene asked. “From where?”

“You know where the donut shop is in town. I live around there,” she whispered.

Her eyes went back and forth from Nolan to Gene. Both of them were looking at her like she was absolutely crazy.

“You walk that every morning and night?” Gene asked.

“Yep.” She popped the P at the end. “It’s really not that bad. It’s exercise that I could use.”

That was a lie. She didn’t need any more exercise than she was getting since she had already lost a lot of weight, but she sold her car to give money to her brother. Was it smart? No, but it was money they needed. Did it make everything ten times harder? Absolutely. Now, she had to walk everywhere, which took up a ton of energy. Energy she probably didn’t have to spare, but she had to do it anyway.

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