Page 77 of Sassy Love
How you doin’, Princess?
The message sends.
The dots appear.
Shit, I hope I didn’t wake her up.
Still breathing, Rawlins.
I smile.
Good to know.
The dots oscillate and then disappear.
They pop up again and then vanish, so I send one of my own.
Night.
Night.
I shower and pull on my boxers. When I lie in my bed, I can’t shift her soft words out of my head. “If I wasn’t sick...”
That’s all it takes for my brain to run with it, sending every last drop of blood south. I roll on to my side, ignoring the damnraging hard-on a few words from her lips has given me. Thinking of anything else, I shove a pillow over my face, like it will help.
An hour later, I’m still wrangling with thoughts I shouldn’t have. Carlie in only a towel in the bungalow. Her between the sheets in those silky pajamas that barely covered her gorgeous ass. The swell of her chest as she slept mere inches from me.
Sweet Jesus.
My cock throbs from studying the curves and elegant angles of her.
I roll over into the mattress, but the pressure does nothing for the ache in my cock.
“Fuck.”
I’m never going to fall asleep with a goddamn hard-on.
I tug my cock free, fisting it.
It’s her pouty lips and elegant hands I want around my cock right now, not my hand. Christ, the woman is laid up in bed, sick as hell, and here I am fucking my hand to the slightest thought of her.
I’m going straight to hell.
The sound of her soft whimper, her tiny moans when I carried her to her bed, her body pressed to mine...
I come all over my stomach.
Now I have something to atone for, Princess.
My feet hit the pavement. Heavier footfalls pound beside me, harsh breathing the only sound exchanged between Miles and me. We hit the five-mile mark a little way back, and neither of us is showing any sign of slowing down. With only aweek until Thanksgiving, my head has been full of numbers for the last few weeks.
Carlie made a full recovery and is back to giving me attitude like nothing else. I swear, now that she knows me better, she’s taking this thing between us to DEF CON 1. We spend an ungodly number of hours in the office. Arriving early and leaving late, trying to prep and plan for the first quarter like we’ve been tasked with saving humanity.
Perhaps we have?
The performance outcomes of quarter one decides who stays and who moves on. Besides the fact I am desperate to make a difference, the idea of not working with Carlie annoys me more than the idea of leaving. We’ve got under each other’s skin, but in a good way now. It feels like something that’s a rare find in this life. Hell, maybe we really are friends.
That grinds my gears like nothing else, and I stumble to a halt on the pavement, pressing a hand into my side, walking a tight circle.
