Total pages in book: 14
Estimated words: 12932 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 65(@200wpm)___ 52(@250wpm)___ 43(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 12932 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 65(@200wpm)___ 52(@250wpm)___ 43(@300wpm)
But I wasn’t going to explore with the showerhead today. I honestly would have felt bad to do that with Aria in the hospital and all. It felt disrespectful. I washed my hair and body, then rinsed the remnants of soup out of my mouth with mouthwash.
When I was done and my hair was blow dried, I caught Clay standing in his bedroom. His door was cracked open and he was shirtless, a towel low on his hips. Tendrils of damp hair clung to his forehead as he rifled through his duffel bag. He picked his head up and spotted me, and my heart accelerated as I looked away.
“You’re staring, Frank!” he called out.
“I wasn’t!” I shouted back. I rushed to my bedroom, placing all my clothes down before going back downstairs to clean the kitchen a bit. I’d planned on watching a new spy movie starring Idris Elba with Aria, but since she wasn’t here, I decided to watch it solo. I went to the sofa with a blanket and flipped to the Netflix app. As it loaded on the TV, I unlocked my phone to send Kandy a text.
Me: Please tell me you can come over.
She responded almost immediately.
BFF KJ: Can’t. I have food poisoning. Cane made me try mussels for the first time. Never again.
I rolled my eyes. Great. I was stuck here with…him. I shot her a text back.
Me: That sucks. Feel better. Also…Clay is in town.
BFF KJ: WHAT?
Me: Yep. And I just saw him half naked. That’s why I need to get out of the house.
BFF KJ: Where’s Aria?
Me: Hospital. Not sure how long she’ll be in there.
BFF KJ: Oh God. Sorry to hear that. She okay?
Me: She swears she’s fine. I’m kinda worried though.
BFF KJ: I know you are. She’ll pull through.
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I hovered my thumb over the keyboard, that is, until Kandy sent another text asking,
BFF KJ: So you two are alone?
Me: YEP
BFF KJ: Think before you act ;)
I sent her the middle finger emoji just as a voice asked, “What you gonna watch?”
I gasped when Clay’s deep voice filled the room.
“Shit, sorry, Frank. Did I scare you?” he asked.
“No—um.” I darkened the screen of my phone and sat up higher on the couch. I pulled the blanket over my chest because I had no bra on and figured he’d stay upstairs playing video games or sleeping or something. “I’m watching some new movie with Idris Elba.”
“Didn’t you used to have a crush on that guy?”
I rolled my eyes. “Who doesn’t have a crush on that guy?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Clay moved around the sofa and sat on the opposite side.
“I didn’t say you could join me,” I joked.
“It’s not just your house,” he said, a smile on his lips.
I couldn’t help smiling with him as I picked up the remote to start the movie, then wrapped the blanket further around me so neither my boobs nor my ass were out. I should’ve worn sweatpants and a hoodie. What the hell was I thinking? I contemplated going upstairs with the blanket wrapped around me, but realized that would have been a little dramatic. It wasn’t like Clay hadn’t seen me in pajamas before…or without a bra. Or like he hadn’t actually touched one of my boobs that one time we kissed during a house party in someone’s laundry room. But it felt different now…and perhaps that was due to my own illicit feelings.
Clay was supposed to be my brother by law, but I wanted him to fuck me in every way possible. There, I confessed it. And five years prior, we almost came close to doing that but stopped ourselves. The only reason we stopped was because we knew it would break Aria’s heart. She always saw us as one big happy family. She had no idea that her son and adopted daughter were infatuated with one another. All these years, I tried to say that it was just a hormonal, emotional thing. We’d found out Aria’s diagnosis and she was sick and weak. We spent all summer taking care of her and it brought us closer…but not in a safe way. One minute we were sitting on the back deck drinking, and the next, I was on his lap, and he was cupping my ass and groping the hell out of me. We’d had a few drinks and couldn’t stop kissing for the life of us. It was like we couldn’t get enough of each other. We almost had sex—almost. The only thing that stopped us was a text from Aria to Clay’s phone, requesting some water.
And that wasn’t the first time Clay and I had done things. There were times in high school where we kissed or fooled around. It was so wrong, but it felt so, so right. It was almost like because we couldn’t have each other, we wanted it more. I could understand why Kandy was so hooked on Mr. Cane. When something felt that good, it was impossible to let it go.