E is for Everett (Men of Alphabet Mountain) - Page 37

As work continued, it was all I could think about. Clearly, someone had seen us together and thought it was newsworthy enough to spread around. Granted, gossip was big in Ashford, but since both of us were still considered outsiders in a way, I was surprised it got around to Rebecca so fast. But clearly some people seemed to think that I was the type of guy that might hurt someone I dated.

Bullshit.

I’d never been the kind of guy to hurt a woman. Not ever. I knew the old “compliment” about being a heartbreaker that little old ladies gave little boys, and I had heard it all my life. But I never saw any appeal in hurting people, opting instead to be decisively honest with every person I dated. It ended up hurting me more often than anything, since I was painfully clear that I wasn’t looking to be tied down and probably lost out on some decent relationships.

But I would rather be honest. I would rather be direct. I would rather let them know that I was only looking for fun or a distraction from the fact that I had to get back on a plane and head to the desert. Now, I was in this small town and in the perfect place to settle down, but she wasn’t. She was clearly settled on her career and ambitious at that. Any relationship between us was probably doomed from the start because she would want to leave at some point.

With that in mind, along with the knowledge that people thought I might hurt her in the long run, I figured that before anything went any further, I should be honest with Helen too. She deserved to know who I was, what I was expecting, and how I felt about her before things got carried away. That way, she could decide how she felt, and I could get my own heartache out of the way.

18

HELEN

Somewhere deep in my subconscious, I had felt like if I just got a chance to explore Everett’s body and have a night of even halfway decent sex, I could shake him off and go back to my regular life. Approximately thirty seconds after he drove away, I knew that was not going to happen.

First off, the sex was spectacular, and there was no denying it. It was easily the most satisfying of my life, and it was like his body was meant specifically for the purpose of pleasuring mine. Secondly, his body was also spectacular, and I didn’t think I could ever get enough of touching it. I still had several things on a to-do list inside my brain that weren’t checked off. There was going to be a need for a second round soon.

For science.

I had the thought that if I shut my door, took a shower, slept for a few hours, and then texted him at some point around lunch, that it would be an appropriate amount of time to not feel like I was desperate for him. Even though I was. Completely. He was all I could think about. His voice, his rippled abs, the way he laughed, that damn smirk of his, and his giant—

My phone rang and I had to shake myself out of the rabbit hole I was rapidly descending into. I was standing in the middle of the office at the diner, staring blankly at the wall calendar that hadn’t been updated in three years. The last entry on it was Harleigh writing “Happy New Year.”

I patted my pockets for my phone, remembering I had stuffed it in my back pocket, and pulled it out.

“Hello, Sam,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“Hello, Helen, I am afraid I have some bad news,” Sam said.

“Do you ever just shoot the shit? Like, can there ever be a phone call where you ask how I am and not immediately dive into the thing that’s going to give me gray hair?” I joked.

“Oh, well, how are you doing, Helen? How are the gray hairs coming along?” she responded.

I didn’t know if she was joking back or serious. That was the problem with Samantha. She had a tendency of being dead serious. Always.

“They’re gray. And I don’t like them, so I dye the shit out of them,” I said. “What’s up?”

“It’s your condo, Helen,” she said.

“I figured that much,” I said. “What’s going on with it?”

“It’s not selling,” she said. “I think I might know why, but it’s complicated. We had a sale nearly finished and it stalled out, and frankly, I need you here to see if it’s something we can smooth over now and get taken care of.”

“Dammit,” I muttered. “I’m kind of not in a place where I can just bail out and go back up to Chicago on a whim, Sam.”

“This isn’t a whim, Helen,” Sam said. “This is a matter of sale or no sale.”

Tags: Natasha L. Black Erotic
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