Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 58987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
She's genuinely fucking smiling at this man.
My jaw locks tight enough that my teeth ache.
A black Honda pulls up to the curb. Scarletta checks her phone, confirms the license plate. Ryan immediately moves to load her luggage into the trunk—all four pieces, organized efficiently like he's done this before.
Has he done this before?
How many times has he helped her with her bags? How many conversations have they had that I don't know about?
The angle's wrong. I can't read their lips. Can't hear a single fucking word over the traffic noise and distance.
Ryan closes the trunk, walks her to the passenger door. Opens it for her like a gentleman. She turns to say something—probably thank you, probably goodbye—and he responds with what looks like "see you soon."
She gets in.
The door closes.
The Uber pulls away from the curb.
And Ryan stands there watching it drive away, hands in his pockets, wearing a smile like he just won something.
I'm not sure how much time passes before I actually snap out of the fugue state watching Scarletta respond to actual flirting from a non-beta male put me in, but the airport pick-up lanes are quieter now.
I make my way to my Jeep, get in, start it up… sit there.
She's not going to come to me.
A woman doesn't drop everything to book a glow-up trip to Vegas because she's looking to go backwards.
A woman does that when she's put the past behind her.
I pull out of the airport and begin the drive back to Jackson. I need to think this through and I don't have somewhere to properly do that in Idaho Falls.
I don't put on tunes.
Don't even register the rolling farmlands and small-town charm in Victor. Those picturesque stretches of rural Idaho where red barns dot green fields and weathered fences line the road like something out of a postcard.
Don't look at the beautiful mountain scenery through Teton Pass as I navigate the tight switchbacks—the towering peaks and dramatic ridge lines that usually pull my attention, the kind of raw wilderness that normally grounds me when everything else feels chaotic.
Don't do anything but think as I make the two-hour drive back to my log mansion in the woods.
My mind is a closed loop playing the same thirty-second clip on repeat: Ryan's easy conversation. Her laugh. The way she leaned into him like they were friends, like she'd done it a hundred times before.
What the fuck is happening here?
Later, back at home, I'm pacing the office. Phone in hand, mind twisting, thoughts spiraling…
I'm losing her.
I gave her space. Clean break. I was very careful with my voyeurism. Public places. Cornerstone's hacked security, the Greenbelt trail cams, Iron River's front door from the public camera across the street.
She took the cameras down in her old apartment. She deleted my key logger hack on her old laptop.
I respected her decision. I pulled back. I didn't even try to infiltrate her new place downtown. I didn't even try to hack her wi-fi and insert a new key logger.
I backed the fuck off.
I gave her space.
That was the mistake.
I have no idea what she does in that new apartment. I didn't keep a good eye on the gym and what she's been doing in there.
Maybe Ryan has been flirting with her for months—subtle compliments, lingering eye contact across the room, that practiced charm he probably deploys without thinking.
Maybe this whole time, while I was carefully curating my distance, he was slowly circling closer.
Or, more likely, he never noticed her at all.
And then… one day… he's in the airport—why? Why was he there? I'll find out, but doesn't really matter. He was. At the baggage claim with nothing but a backpack. And they see each other.
She's transformed.
From mousy introvert to stunning Instagram fantasy.
He's transfixed, recovers quickly enough to pull the heaviest suitcase from the conveyor, small talk.
Wow, look at you!
Yeah, I look hot, don't I? Do you wanna fuck me now?
Right now, my good little slut. Right the fuck now. Bend over this suitcase, pull your dress up, let me spread those perfect cheeks apart and see that glistening pussy waiting for me.
I'm absolutely soaking for you, Ryan. Please, I need you inside me! Fuck me right here against the baggage claim! Don't hold back—I want it rough!
I scoff.
Ridiculous. New hair doesn't change an entire personality.
Also, I should definitely not quit my day job. That pathetic little fantasy I just conjured was… frankly embarrassing.
I'm absolutely soaking for you, Ryan?
Scarletta wouldn't say that. She'd beg for his cock., though.
Please, please fuck me.
That's more her style. She'd probably call him Master.
Give me that cock, Master.
I can picture that easy enough. I'm the fucking one who trained her to say those words out loud instead of locking them up in a story, after all.
I keep spiraling.
Ryan would pin her against his truck in the airport parking garage. Scarletta would melt against him, her new nails scratching down his back, those purple-tipped fingers digging into his shoulders.