Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 73665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
We have the boxes carefully arranged over some bath towels on her bed.
She picks off a piece of pineapple, one of many, and pops it into her mouth. “Mmm. My good gravy goggins. Pineapple does not only belong on pizza. It has a right to be on everything. It’s the most delicious food known to mankind. After ice cream cake.”
Her instructions were to get a frightening amount of pineapple on her pepperoni pizza and to add jalapenos, olives, banana peppers, and basil, as well as to get it made with barbeque sauce instead of red sauce.
What she wanted, I was happy to get, even if her use of the word frightening describes that monstrosity.
Hers makes the deluxe I ordered look boring.
She eats quietly, and the sweet serenity of her face only changes when she closes her eyes to savor the horror show of a mostly fruit pizza.
I wait until we’re just about done eating before I broach the question I need to ask. Even if Bellatrix weren’t so quiet, I need to make sure. Aftercare is more than just a shower and tucking someone into bed.
“Are you doing okay?” I ask.
She freezes, another piece of pineapple she’s picked off nearly at her lips. “Okay as in feelings, stress, chicken with its head cut off anxiety level, or did I just wreck your vagina okay?”
Laughter is not an appropriate response right now. “Is all of the above an option?”
She locks eyes with me, hers warm and glowing like the rest of her. Post-coital bliss looks stunning on Bellatrix. “I’m okay. Maybe a little terrified. I’ve been pretty much invisible for so long that it’s a little bit scary to be seen.”
That right there is straight-up rage fodder for me. I can’t believe people have treated this amazing woman the way they have. There’s no way she should not be seen, appreciated, treasured, and made to feel as special as she absolutely is.
She climbs off the bed, taking the pizza box with her. The way she crawls off gives me a full view of the round moons of her bottom as the robe rides up.
I stifle an ungentlemanly groan.
“Are you done with that? Can I take it and put it in the fridge?” she asks.
“You don’t have to. I can do it,” I tell her.
“No. Just stay right there. If you get up, you’ll want to get dressed, and I’m really enjoying the practically naked Rowleigh look you’re rocking. Really, really enjoying it.” She gathers up my mostly empty pizza box, stacking it with hers. She pauses at the door and then turns around with a swish of her hair. “Tea?”
“Yes, please. Let me help you make it.”
She shakes her head. “No way. Tea and nudity don’t mix.”
I know I’m giving her an eyeful of a goofy grin, but I can’t help it. “I think we proved that’s not true.”
A faint pink blush stains her cheeks, and her eyes darken. “I meant scalding tea.”
“Are you sure I can’t do something for you? Clean the kitchen? Put away paint cans? Organize unused wallpaper rolls?”
“Just stay. I’ll be back right away.”
She means it. When she breezes back into the room, the tea she brings is lukewarm at best. And the minty scent trails her.
She sits down across from me, tucking her legs up under her slowly, intentionally flashing me. “You asked me if I was okay, and I am.” She cups her mug in both hands, her face infused with a brand-new softness. “I want to do me. And you. No one has all the answers, and no one comes through life unscathed. It means so much that you trust me after you’ve been hurt, and not just with that. But with…I guess the economic disparity.”
“I know you’re not in this to use me in any way,” I say.
She sips her tea, her throat bobbing hard. “No. I know what it’s like to be used, and it’s a terrible feeling.”
I don’t know if she’s talking about her ex or someone else, but I’d like to find them and make them suffer in the worst, most bizarre ways. And by worst and most bizarre, I mean deodorant that gives a strange rash, sheets that never feel properly crisp, and perpetually bland food. Nothing psychotic.
Although, if I were the kind of badass, outlaw, borderline not sane kind of man, I would very much like to find those guys and hammer them into a bloody pulp in an underground illegal face-slapping match where anything goes.
“It takes a lot of trust for you too,” I say softly, swallowing back the anger at anyone daring to ever hurt this woman or abuse her trust.
“Yes, but it’s far more fun freaking out internally while sitting here with you, surrounded by your man scent.”
“Explain it to me, this ‘man scent.’”
All I smell is mint from the tea and the fragrant body wash Bellatrix used in the shower.