Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Usually, spending more time with a woman has me losing my hard-on, but it only seems to be the opposite with this one. You’d have thought I relieved all my damn swimmers jerking off twice in the shower last night. But here they are, all but busting to get out of my balls again.
I squeeze the top of my cock. Down boy. Getting rid of some tension in the shower is one thing. I don’t need to be jerking off like a randy goat all the time. I’m a man, for Christ’s sake, not some teenage boot barely out of basic.
I drop to the ground to do my morning hundred. I don’t want to work up too much of a sweat since it’s a busy day, and I know with Kira’s schedule, there won’t be another time to catch a shower. But there also won’t be time to work out, so after the pushups, I reapply my deodorant and fit in a couple hundred crunches until the shower turns off.
We were finally able to drop by my apartment after Kira taught on Tuesday so I could get a duffle of clothes. Naturally, Kira was not impressed with my little studio on the wrong side of 35 in south Dallas. That girl’s such a natural snob she doesn’t even know how to hide the look of horror in her eyes when she glimpses how the other half lives. You’d have thought the folks sleeping off hangovers on the stairs were cranked up and ready to jump her, the way she cowered back from them.
She’s still young, though, I have to remind myself. She might act like most women my age, but she’s a decade and a half younger. It’s only one of the many differences between us.
I mean, come around my place at midnight, and it’s a whole different story. But by ten a.m., everyone’s down for the count.
The Dallas I know is a nocturnal city.
And it’s more than apparent by Kira’s blaring alarm at god, what time even is it? I glance at the clock on the fancy bedside table. Seven fifteen. Yeah. For a woman who wakes up at seven in the morning, she clearly lives in daytime Dallas, which is for a whole different breed of people than I usually interact with.
We don’t even open Carnel until eight at night. Usually, I sleep until noon.
I stand up as Kira comes out from the bathroom, all wet and glistening, with just a towel wrapped around her. Her eyes go wide when she sees me pop up from the other side of the bed.
“I’ll just wash up quick,” I say.
“We don’t have much time,” she says, eyes zeroed in on my abs.
“Probably why I said quick then, huh?”
That has her eyes snapping to mine and narrowing.
I grin. “Loosen up, Princess. I know it’s a busy day.”
“Don’t call me Princess.”
“Okay, Red.” I head past her to the bathroom.
Her head all but twists off as she whips around. “Don’t call me Red!” echoes past me even after I’ve swung the door shut.
I smile wider.
Oh, today’s gonna be a fun one.
ELEVEN
KIRA
I barely have time to shove some breakfast salad in my mouth before I make it to the skin place. That’s how I think of what I put myself through on these days: skin, hair, make-up. It takes all day long.
And yes, I said breakfast salad.
I’ve sat through enough lectures from my mother about how antioxidants from greens are simply required for glowing skin. Theoretically, I would have been just juicing all week, but I decided a long time ago I’d only put myself through the bare minimum when it comes to showing up to these rituals for my mother. I was ED-adjacent all through high school because of that woman, and I’m not going back there just because she loves control and has never cared what it’s done to me.
As I sit back and allow a woman to pluck and tweeze the life out of every stray hair on my face before applying a light chemical peel, I remind myself—it’s just today and a couple more times before the wedding.
“You really should have come in at the beginning of the week,” the aesthetician says with a frown. “There’s a lot of sun build-up here, but I’m only going to be able to get the top layer off because you need to be make-up-ready tonight.”
“I’ll remember that for next time,” I mumble through the mask on my face.
I’m going to have to employ my breathing exercises because god knows Carol’s going to keep testing me. Especially with the fucking dress. She literally ordered a size smaller than I am and told me to get my body wedding-dress-ready to fit into it. She recommended Piloxes, the newest thing. It’s a mix of pilates and boxing, apparently.