Page 46 of A Break in Communications

She replied at lightning speed.exactly,and then,the shower temperature,and,let me know how it’s heating up, how close it’s getting to the perfect temperature, how good it feels when it’s almost there, and once it finally gets there

I swallowed, hard, heat prickling through my body. Took me a minute to type out a reply.it’s already pretty warm, honestly

same on my side,she sent, and then, after a pause,under the blankets, of course.

God dammit. I stepped into the shower, gripping my phone tightly, keeping it out of the water enough to keep texting.

It wasn’t going to take long for the water to get up to temperature.

Chapter 13

Lucy

I had sex with Anna Preston.

If I lived to be a hundred, I’d still be there on my deathbed repeating that to myself in awe. I tried not to spend the whole rest of the day walking around with my chest puffed out looking like I’d pulled off the greatest miracle known to humanity, but, well, I did.

Even when she’d said she wasn’t looking to date me, she still blushed, squirmed trying to resist me, and she admitted she was attracted to me.Anna Preston.Thought I was hot. I must have been a fucking masterpiece.

That would have been enough to content myself on for the rest of time—could have died that evening and been satisfied with how my life had gone—butthenI got to text Anna Preston while she got herself off in the shower and I did the same in her bed. And I was sure it was written all over my face when I saw her again in the kitchen just a minute later, stepping in to find Anna making coffee and talking with her father, and she blushed violently when she saw me, looking away.

Which meant she was still thinking about the whole thing. Which meant maybe I could make her blush and squirm again later. If I got to have sex with Anna Preston asecondtime in my life—that was just victory laps at that point.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” I said, my voice low as I came up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist and kissingher neck. The whole time it felt like my head would explode, just the keen awareness of the fact that I was actually able todothat—just walk up to Anna Preston and kiss her—even if we weren’t dating, I was living in my wildest fantasy. “You look nice in that outfit.”

“Ah… I have nothing on you. I didn’t even know you’d packed that shirt. I’d forgotten you even had it.”

She’dforgotten?Did that mean she’d paid enough attention in the first place to even notice I’d owned it, and then remembered it even when I hadn’t worn it for months?

Was it because she thought I was hot? Because I felt like the hottest person in the universe. Second to Anna Preston.

“I always keep a sneaky change of clothes. Spilled coffee on a white shirt before a big meeting one time and I never emotionally recovered.”

“Ever the practical one, darling.” She turned back and kissed me over her shoulder, and I reeled, seeing the ends of the universe and beyond.

God, I wanted to fuck her again. I’d never seen anyone look so pretty begging to get fucked as Anna had, and all I cared about in life, suddenly, was getting to do it again.

“I’ve heard you find my competency attractive…”

She rolled her eyes, smiling. “Well, I wouldn’t date Kelcey, let’s say that and leave it there.”

She was so cute. Couldn’t ever compliment me directly. I never wanted her to change.

I spent all of breakfast with the family in some wild blissful state, sitting next to Anna and sneaking little looks at her to find her looking at me, and every time, it felt like I’d won a jackpot on a slot machine. I knew my sense of self-satisfaction was probably visible from space, even through the rest of the day and once we piled into our respective cars and, one way or another, wound upat the tree farm upstate, because I was gazing adoringly at Anna when Veronica caught me and gave me a look.

“I can’t read you,” she said, and it was only then that I even realized she was there, turning and looking at where she folded her arms, scowling at me.

“On the contrary, I think I’m an open book,” I said, after taking a second to shift my mind away from Anna. “Something specific you have questions about?”

She studied me, giving me a long once-over before looking back at Anna, down at the front of the farmhouse with her parents, talking to the proprietor, old man Gunner with his stocky build and thick gray beard. The farmhouse was a cute place, all cozy and warm, an old wood-cottage style building lit up with a big fireplace next to where the windows were frosted over with the thick snow that had been falling since sunrise. We’d gotten in and took the most important things first, getting our gingerbread lattes and spiced cider, sitting around the heavy old oak tables by the fireplace to have gingerbread and marzipan with our drinks and talk about nothing, and I’d scored a table with just me and Anna where I got to flirt with her and see how many veiled sexual comments I could slip into a conversation before she called me out.

Turned out, it was only twice. But I knew the look on her face was less of anugh, stopand more of astop that, you cannot turn me on here, and I was cherishing that win until the end of time.

Of course, I’d been so engrossed in hitting on Anna that I’d kind of forgotten about the rest of the entire trip until she’d gone with her parents to talk to Gunner about picking out a tree for her place, and I’d fully forgotten Veronica was even there until she’d leaned against the wood paneling next to me and spoken.

She shrugged. “I dunno, you’re just gazing at my sister like she’s off-limits. Plus everything you were doing last night… like,I know you only just got together, but, like, she’s your girlfriend, not some unattainable goddess.”

“That’s your opinion,” I said, letting my gaze move back to Anna, where she stood with her hands in her pockets, leaning casually. “Seems like an unattainable goddess to me.”

---