Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“For your information, I never sleep past ten.” I dug through my belongings, picking out a white lace thong and matching bra before I closed the top of my suitcase. “Unless I’m hungover.” I glanced over my shoulder on my way to the bathroom, finding his attention solely on the skimpy underwear dangling from my hand.
Right before I closed the door, I caught his reflection in the mirror as he adjusted the erection tenting his towel.
And I smiled. Misery loves company, after all.
I took a quick shower and may or may not have thought about Vance while I pleasured myself. Yes, I knew masturbating in the hotel bathroom while he was in the next room was weird, but it took me less than three minutes. That’s how bad it was, and I had to take the edge off if I wanted to survive.
I slipped into my green sundress, put my wet hair into a braid, then swiped on my BB cream and mascara. When Vance had asked how I’d gotten ready in twenty minutes instead of two hours—smartass—I’d told him it was because I was hungry. It wasn’t a lie. I was starving.
Vance’s gaze met mine as we rounded the street corner. “Any word on Rent-a-Poo?”
Thanks to the whole viral video thing this morning, I’d almost forgotten about that little nugget.
“No. No word on how that went over yet. They’re probably still sleeping.” A smile crept over my face at the thought of my sister throwing a complete tantrum when she found out her party had literally been shit on. The delight I felt over that truckload of manure was akin to the excitement I’d imagine Christian Grey might experience at the prospect of having five-hundred ginger-root bulbs to shove up a woman’s asshole. Simply put, the thought of it delighted the sadist inside of me.
“I hope it ruined her entire day,” he said, brushing something from the sleeve of his tight black T-shirt.
I liked our mutual disdain.
“Trust me, Kate is a diva. One lone dog turd under a picnic table would have sent her over the edge. An entire yard of poop will ruin her year.” And possibly my mother’s. I took a few steps before I felt my smile fall. Sure, my sister had done me dirty; still, delighting in her misery felt wrong.
“Don’t do that.”
I glanced up at Vance. “Do what?”
“Feel guilty.”
How had he known an unexpected seed of guilt had wormed its way through my chest? He was a man. Men weren’t supposed to be intuitive.
“She’s not a nice person,” he said. “She deserves a lot more than a shit-covered yard.”
Karma, right? The warm sun that crept between the elegant stone buildings heated my face, and I took a breath, trying to ignore the feeling that I was a horrible person for wanting Kate’s day to be ruined.
“Shit...”
I glanced back at Vance.
“It keeps bleeding,” he said, swiping at the small gash on his forehead.
“Because you keep touching it. You need a Band-Aid.”
“I’m not putting a Band-Aid on my forehead.”
“Do you just want to walk around Paris, bleeding everywhere?” I continued down the sidewalk, past shopkeepers putting out their goods for the day.
“I’m not bleeding everywhere.”
Half-rolling my eyes, I headed toward the electronic, green pharmacie cross on the corner of the street.
The dark-haired lady behind the counter greeted us with a bonjour when we stepped inside the small shop. We greeted her back.
“That’s a nice touch, you know?” I perused an aisle filled with homeopathic treatments and picked up a box with flowers on it. “I wish people in Manhattan did that.”
“If people greeted customers in New York the second they stepped in, at least one person a day would respond with, ‘Fuck you.’”
I put the item back on the shelf. “You’re a pessimist, aren’t you?”
“I’m a realist.”
I rounded the shelving, glancing from ankle supports to medical tape to condoms. Why were condoms beside ankle supports?
The masculine scent of Vance’s cologne wrapped around me when he reached over my shoulder for a box of Magnum-sized condoms.
My pulse sped up. Why did he think he needed those? Oh, crap. Because of what I’d said last night! “What are you doing?” I asked, pretty sure there was a slight tremor in my voice.
“Looking at condoms.”
“Why?”
He glanced up from the box. “Why not?”
Heat bled over my face. It was just a box of prophylactics but seeing him hold said box made me anxious.
“Does the whole ‘ribbed for her pleasure’ thing actually work?”
“No. I don’t know. I mean, I guess some women like it. Added stimulation or something.” Like a dick ring. I felt my face heat at that internal whisper. “I don’t want to talk about that with you.” I moved down the aisle, searching for the Band-Aids.
The only thing I found was something aptly named Avo-Cato bandages—a box of bright-green, avocado-shaped bandages with a smiling cat face in the center. Desperate to get away from Vance and the prophylactics, I snatched them from the hook, then headed to the front of the store.