Page 64 of Lemon Crush

“You’ve got your Retta rules. Consider this one of mine for now. We get to know each other first, while I give you what you said you wanted instead of romance.”

Orgasms. He was asking to get to know me while giving me orgasms and denying himself.

“Is this a kinky thing? Does it have a time limit? A milestone we have to reach before I can, say, suck your dick?”

I couldn’t believe I’d said that. If I’d had any filter left, the endorphins must have destroyed it.

Wade couldn’t believe it either. He choked out a “Damn, Gus.” Part laughter, part sexual frustration, his eyes full of heat. “Let’s give it a few days and see how it goes.”

He didnotanswer my kink question. But if he kept a chest full of handcuffs and whips somewhere, I needed to know about it, right? I’d have to do more research, because other than that weird movie with the red room, I had no idea what I was getting into. It might be a deal breaker.

Hah. Wade wants to give you more orgasms likethe one you’re still recovering from. Deal breakers in this scenario don’t exist.

Yeah. Who was I trying to kid here? “You know denying me is only going to make me want it more.”

“That’s the idea,” he murmured as he brushed a kiss along my jaw. “Say yes, Gus.”

“A few days,” I said breathlessly. “I guess I can get on board with a few days. I’m in.”

“Good girl.” There was an intriguingly possessive gleam in his eyes. “Now get your sweet ass back to work.”

He did like to play. Good to know.

The crowd had thinned by the time I got back to the icehouse, and a couple of employees had managed to make it in for the evening shift despite the flooding, including a cook who’d introduced himself as Frank. Bernie, after giving me a long look that told me she might have suspicions about what I’d been up to, sent me home with orders to wear better shoes for my next shift.

The look on her face when I said I planned on it?

Priceless.

I liked catching her off guard, but the more I thought about it on the drive home, the less amusing it was. She hadn’t thought I would come back. Hadn’t expected me to step up and take a few shifts for the sake of my pregnant goddaughter. My only regular visitor and the closest I’d get to having a child of my own.

It was sobering, and not a little shameful, to realize that Bernie expected less from me than I expected from myself. Less than she would have from Morgan or our mother. I couldn’t be angry about it, because it wasn’t an unfair assumption. I’d been defined by my absence, and that definition was not flattering. All this time I’d thought the only person affected by isolating myself so completely was me, but obviously, I was wrong.

When I got home, after making Merlin suffer through someloving that he pretended not to appreciate, the first thing I did was take another shower. The hours running around in the heat had put my deodorant to the test. And that episode in Wade’s office was so hot it had decimated it completely.

I put my hair up and got into the shower to scrub my aching muscles clean. When my fingers encountered the residual slickness and sensitivity between my legs, a new flood of arousal hit me so hard, I briefly toyed with the idea of getting myself off to the memory of what happened today. Seductive Wade had been even more difficult to resist than Everyday Wade. No more suggestive words and potentially meaningful eye contact for me to obsess over every time we said hello. There was no doubt about his intentions, or my reaction to them. If he hadn’t insisted on slowing things down there at the end, he might be in this shower with me right now.

Naked, soapy Wade would be a reality.

That’s what I wanted. Settling for my own hand or the pulsating shower head (no matter how sweetly it had treated me in the past) held no interest anymore. Only the real thing would do.

He said he wanted me to take without giving for a few days. Did that mean he would be knocking on my door tomorrow to dole out another orgasm, like a drug dealer? Should I text him for a backyard booty call? How would this even work?

Since my mind was racing with possibilities anyway, I decided to put some of my frustrated sexual energy into my book. I rinsed off quickly and pulled on my slouchy writing clothes, brewed myself a cup of coffee and headed upstairs, soothed by the familiar ritual.

What I noticed when I opened my computer was the opposite of soothing.

Three missed calls from Morgan.

“Crap.”

She’d said she wouldn’t call me after the cruise started, but once the hurricane hit, she’d changed her tune, calling every other day, if only for a minute or two. She’d wanted updates on my roof, the wall, and everything the insurance check was paying for (It was her way of showing she cared).

But today I hadn’t been here. On instinct I looked at my phone and saw the text message I hadn’t noticed until now. She must have sent it when I was on my lunch break with Wade.

Morgan: Is everything okay? Wondering if you got that last project done. Will call tomorrow at the usual time.

Me: I’ll talk to you then.

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