It just… eats away at you. Little by little. Year by year. And for many people, there just never seemed to be an end in sight.
You could only work so hard.
You could only sacrifice so much.
It felt like an uphill battle, only the hill just kept stretching higher as you approached it.
“Just because you have to work,” he said, and I felt his fingers snag my chin, forcing it up and over to look at him while I tried to school my features into indifference even as a thrill coursed through my system, “doesn’t mean you can’t make time to live too.”
Was he just… subconsciously rubbing his thumb across my jaw? Or was he doing that intentionally?
Either way, I felt like I was melting into it, as chaste as it was.
What the hell was going on?
CHAPTER NINE
Salvatore
What the hell was I doing?
I mean, for fuck’s sake, it was bad enough that I was showing up at her place unannounced, but getting all soft with her in her kitchen? When I’d been spending the last few days reminding myself why the hell I needed to stay away from her.
You can see how fucking convincing I was.
Showing up at her door.
Picking her lock.
Walking around her apartment like I had any business being there.
Then getting fucking jealous about the dishes in the sink.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed women. I wasn’t unfamiliar with one being on my mind. But it was in a very specific way.
I didn’t wonder what she was doing with her time when she wasn’t with me, or who she shared her time with.
It was fucked.
At first, I’d been able to tell myself it was just because I’d walked out of that bathroom with a throbbing, unsatisfied cock with her sweet taste still in my mouth, with the echoes of her cries ringing in my ears.
It was easy to dismiss the interest as unfulfilled desire. That was some shit that I could understand. But as the days went on and my thoughts drifted even more to shit that had nothing to do with going down on her, or her on me, or getting inside her sweet pussy, yeah, I started to wonder what the fuck was going on with me.
I never did figure it out.
But that strange interest eventually led me over toward her neck of the woods, up her stairs, down her hall, then into her apartment when she didn’t answer when I’d knocked.
And, well, the lasagne looked and smelled good.
Some strange part of me really wanted to taste it. Not because I was hungry; I’d just eaten. But it felt more important to me to taste it because Whitney had made it.
I didn’t get that desire, but I didn’t fight it either.
And I also didn’t stop to analyze why I was so pleased that it was fucking amazing.
Then the door was opening, and there she was.
It was the first time I’d seen her in her own clothes.