Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
I need you, I think. I am obsessed with you. I adore you.
With a soft grunt, he pulls away, his breath a warm puff of air, rhythmically gusting against my mouth. Like this, we rest our heads together, catching our breath.
“Holy shit,” he whispers.
“I know.”
I want to take him home, carefully lay him down, climb over him. I want to feel the stretch of him inside me, the weight of his hands on my body, the rumbling sounds of his pleasure.
Straightening, Luca looks down at me and runs his thumb over my chin. “I tell you one thing,” he says, voice raspy. “I might not remember it, but I know in my bones I’ve done that before.”
25 LUCA
Back home in the driveway, Emery hits the garage remote, and the door rolls open to reveal an empty space where I know my work truck used to be.
I realize there’s nothing I can do with it for now, but its absence makes me feel weirdly hollow. “Where’s my truck?”
“Oh, shit, sorry.” She puts her hand on my arm. “I had Crash come get it earlier. You can’t use it for now, and I’d rather have the car in the garage while you’re home recuperating so that Betty next door can’t track my every move.”
“Why doesn’t she like you?”
“For starters, we’ve already established that I work a lot. I don’t think she approves.” She frowns as she carefully steers her car into the tight space. “I’m not very domestic or particularly talented in the ways a woman her age probably thinks a wife should be. She loves you and thinks you deserve better. There’s also my job. Most people just take things at face value, but I always got the sense that she never bought the story. I’m probably being paranoid, but I can’t shake this sense that she’s hovering over us.”
“I’m sure you’re overthinking it.” Carefully, I climb out once she’s put the car in park. My leg is sore from all the walking, and it takes me longer to stand than I’d like.
“She came over the other day,” Em says, walking around the car to the house. “She wanted to talk to you, and I said you weren’t feeling well. You talk to her almost every day; she’d know immediately that something’s off.”
Honey barks excitedly when she hears the door open, and I follow Emery into the house through the garage door, watching her routine of dropping her keys in the ceramic bowl, kicking off her shoes, washing her hands before grabbing a glass from the cabinet and filling it with water. She lifts it to her lips, drinking deeply. Her throat is long and smooth, and the urge rises up inside me to move closer and press my mouth there.
“Won’t she think that’s weird?” I say. “If she goes from talking to me every day to never seeing me?”
Emery walks to the living room, letting Honey out of her crate. Honey bounds excitedly forward, straight to me, where she presses her head into my palm for attention. Careful of my leg, I crouch down, pressing my face to her fur. “Hey, baby.”
Sending her hand down Honey’s back, Emery says, “Honey-girl, do you need to go potty?”
Honey is very on board with this plan and races to the back door. We follow, letting her out and watching her noodle around the lawn.
“There’s more,” Emery says, leaning against the doorway. “I’m almost positive she saw me the night of your accident. She’s older, and I have to imagine her eyesight isn’t what it used to be, but I think she saw me inject you with the compound—” To illustrate, she lifts her arm and brings it down hard enough to get through a sternum. Holy shit. It really would look like I was being stabbed. “Then I put you in my car and drove away, and she hasn’t seen you since.”
“Fuck.”
“Yep, fuck. She said there was blood on the ground, which there was, but when she went back to take a photo, it was gone.” At my questioning look, she adds, “Annie has a friend who ‘takes care’ of that kind of thing.” She taps a finger against her mouth. “Do you send a thank-you note for a situation like that? He was super thorough.”
I rub my hands over my face. This whole thing just keeps getting weirder. “So, this neighbor lady thinks you, what?” I ask with a laugh. “Killed me?” When Emery doesn’t even smile, I stop laughing.
“I think so, yeah.”
“You’re saying this woman thinks she saw you murder me and do something with my body—”
“Probably bury you in the backyard. Or had Crash do it when he planted the trees.” She lifts her chin to indicate the new row bordering the property. “Ooh, maybe she thinks Crash and I are having an affair and planned it together.”