Page 23 of The Wrong Guy

Smiling in victory, I thrash my fingers into her as fast as I can. “One more, give me one more, baby.”

Wren curls in reflexively, her hands on my shoulders. But it’s not for balance ... she shoves me away so hard that I fall on my ass, sprawling in her foyer floor.

“What the—”

Wren has gone from shameless sex goddess to pissed-off honey badger in a blink. Panting and wild-eyed, she steps between my legs, the point of her stiletto dangerously close to my cock, which hasn’t gotten the memo about the mood change. She bends down and snarls directly in my face, “Do not call me that. Get out, Jesse.”

Trying to make sense of what changed, I ask, “Don’t call you what? Baby? I always call you that when we’re—”

Thankfully, I don’t have to decide on what to call what we’re doing because Wren interrupts me. “I know. That’s what you call everyone. Get out.”

She yanks me up from the floor, pushing and swatting at me as she shoos me toward the door. “Wren, I don’t—” I stop, realizing that I’m about to lie. I do, or I have, called other women “baby” before, but there’s been no one since Wren. She’s the only woman I’ve been with since we started whatever we were, and I’ve been hung up on her ever since. My dick doesn’t even notice anyone else. “I haven’t been—”

“Shut up. I don’t need to hear whatever charming excuses you’re about to pull outta your ass.”

The next thing I know, the door is slammed shut in my face. I blink, still not sure exactly what happened. I lean on the doorframe, knowing she can still hear me. “Wren, it’s not like that. I swear.”

I hear her heels clicking away from the door, and then the lights turn off. Angrily, I slam a palm to the door once.

Fuck!

A tiny, evil, petty voice inside me says, At least she’s not going out with Doucheboy.

Small consolation.

Chapter 9

WREN

It’d seemed fairly innocuous—a simple manila folder of paperwork—something I receive every day. It wasn’t until I opened it that I realized it’s a copy of Chrissy’s injunction filing to stop construction at Township.

But that’s not the worst part.

I stare at the Post-it note on the front of the injunction. I can almost hear Oliver reading it inside my head, with all the naughty innuendo.

Sorry I missed seeing you for dinner last night. I hope you’re feeling loads better after such a long, hard day. I was up all night thinking of you. —Oliver

“Thinking of you” is underlined twice, like I wouldn’t read between the lines. He might as well have written that he jacked off to the spank-bank version of my sounds of pleasure.

I slam my head to the desk, feeling exposed and vulnerable as reality slaps me in the face again. I had an explosive orgasm with Jesse between my thighs while on the phone with Oliver. And there’s zero chance Oliver didn’t know exactly what was happening. He had to have recognized the noises I was making and probably heard Jesse whispering in the background too.

What was that? Other than crazy.

Who does that? Not Wren Ford, that’s for fucking sure.

I wonder if that counts as a threesome? Or is “aural” sex a thing? I have no idea, and I’m not googling it at work. Probably not at home, either, because there’s no telling what I’ll find out, and there’s no going back to unknowing.

After kicking Jesse out last night, I’d walked a million miles on a loop from the front door, to the living room, to the kitchen. My brain had been going ninety to nothing, jumping from Jed and Chrissy, to Jesse and Oliver, to Township, and, oddly, to a video I saw of a whining dog who demands to be tucked in every night like the queen she is. Eventually, it was that dog that got me to go to bed. If she could go to bed at seven o’clock with no guilt, I could go to bed at midnight with a clear conscience even with everything falling apart. Still, sleep had been slow to come.

But I did work out some shit during my mental marathon.

Focus on the priority.

It’s the simplest, most important thing right now—Township. Everything else is a distraction.

Like this Post-it note.

I yank it off, wadding it up to toss in the trash. Gathering my laptop, the stack of papers from my desk, and my mind, I head down the hall. I knock on Ben’s door twice and then open it a crack.

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