Page 66 of Forty

“—They’re not you. I don’t even remember their names.”

“They must love you.”

“Don’t make a joke out of it, Nevaeh. Do you know what I thought about on that helicopter? When I was falling out of the sky, and I knew I was gonna die?”

I muffle a soft cry by smushing my lips closed, and I dig my fingers into his biceps. I hate that image. I don’t want it in my head.

“Your face. Your wild hair. Your huge smile. Your beautiful face. Goddamn it, Nevaeh. Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have had to be mad all these years.”

“You didn’t have to be mad,” I whisper.

“You didn’t have to stay gone.” He wraps his arms around me again, crushing me to his chest. “We’re both stubborn as hell.”

“Yeah.” I smile into his damp skin.

“Do you like the house?”

“It’s all right. Could use more of a view.” The sky’s exploding in pastels now, every color of rainbow sherbet, and a smattering of stars are twinkling overhead.

“Nevaeh.” Forty runs his fingers in my hair, holding my head in place. He searches my eyes. “Always tell me the whole truth. Trust me. Promise.”

Heat gushes between my legs.

“Okay.” I tilt my hips forward so my clit grazes his cock. It’s now tucked between us, pointed straight up. I whimper and buck. The stretch in my hips, the bubbles on my toes. It all feels so good. My eyes drift shut.

“Nevaeh.” He shakes me—gently—and I open my eyes again, but I keep grinding, slipping my slick pussy against his wet cock. I’m swollen, almost unbearably tender. “Are you focused?”

Nope.

I nod yes.

“Are you, uh. Does it bother you? To have sex?”

Botheris a weird word. I stop rubbing myself on his cock.

“All evidence is to the contrary, Forty.”

I don’t want to talk about this with him. I know I’m…sexually glitchy. Some people, they can’t stand to be touched. I went the other direction. I tried to erase everything with Forty, and after him, with whoever I was with. My brain misfires sometimes, and I’ll strike out without warning—kind of a startle reflex—or I get the panic sweats sometimes. But not often. And I can make myself cum. I figure I’m as good as I’m gonna get.

I don’t want to be thinking about this. Not in a hot tub.

And Forty’s getting soft against my belly. And I’m cold.

“I have trouble getting hard sometimes.”

What? Record scratch.

Forty sniffs and stares over my shoulder. “After the accident, I was on a medication that fucked with my erections, and I stopped taking it, but I’m still like, fifty-fifty.”

I cock my head. Just ‘cause I can’t believe he’s telling me this. Forty Nowicki is not the kind of man who shares. Well, he wasn’t. I guess I don’t know the man he’s become all that well.

“All right. More like sixty-forty,” he amends.

“I wasn’t doubting your percentage!” It probably looked like I was. Oh, I’m a jerk. “Both are very good odds. Like, the Lotto is millions to one.”

He cracks a wry smirk. “The ladies do feel lucky.”

I slap his wet chest, making my palm sting. He chuckles from the belly.

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