Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96600 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96600 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“I know.” He laughed and tried to dodge the playful slap I landed on his shoulder. “But it’s still nice to hear it.” He stroked my hair against my back. “Now that I can say it, the first time I saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”
I sat up and gave him an incredulous twist of my mouth. “In a tank top and cutoffs? So, like, beautiful compared to the alligator?”
“No, just beautiful. Fucking you became priority number one.” He blushed, and my heart melted into goo. “I should have known better. I should have known I was going to fall in love with you.”
“Everyone always does.” That wasn’t necessarily a good thing. “Speaking of… Does this mean we’re monogamous now?”
“Sexually? Fuck no.” He stopped himself. “Wait, is that what you want? Because if that’s what you want—”
“I can be in love with you with some other dude’s cock in me.” I had to set the record straight on that right away. There was too much freaky sex to be had out there, and I didn’t mean on the island. “And you can be in love with me with some other chick’s hand up your ass.”
“Oh, good. Then you’re aware that I’m also able to love you—”
“If your cock is in someone else, yeah. Goes both ways. We’re on the same page there.” I bit my lip. “Romantically, though, are you…”
He shrugged. “I’ve never been in an actual poly relationship. I’ve definitely had group friends with benefits. And I do a Thursday-night circle jerk in New York.”
I couldn’t help my huge, loud laugh. “That’s a thing?”
“It’s an amazing stress reliever. I get together with a few of my more open-minded guy friends, have a couple beers, bitch about our week, and then…circle up and watch each other jerk off.” The matter-of-fact way he described it, like it was a book club, only made it funnier.
“I’m sorry, I…” I wiped tears of laughter from my eyes. “I had no idea that was even a thing people do.”
“It’s cheaper than therapy.” He paused. “I do therapy too. That’s one of those things that I’m not willing to give up.”
“Therapy, or jacking off in a room full of guys?” I joked, and before he could answer, I clarified, “I’m kidding. I’m fine with both.”
“When we’re out in the real world, though, where people aren’t vetted and providing medical records? Safety with partners required, okay?” he asked, fully serious. “And disclosure. If you want to fuck other people, I don’t care. But I have to know you’re going to be safe, and I have to know it’s happening.”
“Always,” I swore, and held up my hand with my pinkie finger raised.
He linked his around mine and we shook on it.
“Romantically, though?” He went back to the other part of the question. “I’m not sure how I would feel if you fell in love with someone else, and I had to share you. It might be different if we were both in love with the same person, but… I’m not sure I would seek it out.”
“Then it’s you and me until further notice,” I agreed.
“Until seven days after we get to New York, right?”
It didn’t sound like a joke, now.
I laid my head on his chest again, listening for a moment to the beat of his heart under my ear. And the gurgles from the ice cream, which made me smile, until I remembered that my inability to accept love was actively hurting him.
“I’m trying,” I whispered.
He took my hand and raised it to his lips, brushing them along the backs of my fingers. “I know.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you.”
“I know,” he emphasized. “The amount of importance we both place on trust correlates to the trauma having our trust broken in the past has caused us.”
“That’s not your original idea.” I walked my fingertips over his pecs. “That’s from therapy.”
“It is,” he confirmed. “So it’s coming from someone smarter and more qualified than I am. I want you to be able to trust that I love you. But you had a big shock in childhood that made you question the people you love and who were closest to you. I can’t hold it against you if you’re not ready to jump off a proverbial ledge with me.”
I lifted my head. “You know what?”
He raised an eyebrow in question.
“That goes a long way toward making me trust you. I don’t like to be rushed,” I answered.
He squinted at me incredulously. “You gave me a seven-day deadline to prove my love, and you don’t like to be rushed?”
I batted my eyes at him. “I never said the deadline couldn’t be extended.”
“All right, that’s it.” He wrapped his arms around me tight and sat up. I squealed and pushed at him, but he was far stronger.