Page 40 of All Jacked Up

I bit my tongue before telling her that the idea of her being a perv was going to make my dick explode.

“You were the one who said watch,” I told her instead.

“As in on the internet. There are websites for that.”

I stopped walking. “Shakespeare,” I said, thinking, surely, I was misunderstanding her again, “are you telling me you watch porn?”

If she said yes, I was going to have to jerk myself off before I drove back to the distillery.

“Yes.”

“Fuck,” I muttered, and this time, it was me who blew out a breath. “I wasn’t expecting that answer.”

But the relief that came with knowing there was no other man she was writing about felt damn good. I wasn’t ready to kill someone. I just wanted to fuck. Her. I wanted to fuck her.

Dammit!

I turned back around and headed for the plane again. I couldn’t fuck her. It would ruin everything. I’d already called her. This was changing us, and I was afraid it would eventually end this. What I’d grown to need. A part of my life I wasn’t willing to lose.

The blonde was exiting the plane with her purse over her shoulder. When her eyes met mine, I crooked a finger at her. She was going to get more than my cock in her mouth. I had a condom in my truck. I needed to fuck her and remind myself how good it was to fuck who I wanted. Variety was better than just one.

“Yeah,” she replied, sounding embarrassed.

“All right, you satisfied my curiosity. I’ve got someone waiting on me. I need to go,” I told her.

“Okay,” she replied.

The way my hand tightened on the phone when the desire to keep talking to her fought against me had me ending the call without a goodbye. It was rude, but fuck if I was going to allow my cock to screw up the best relationship I’d ever had.

Thirteen

Noa

She was dead.

I stared at the wall as a numbness began to spread through me.

Dead. I couldn’t even say the word out loud.

Laying my phone down on the mattress, I wondered if I should call someone. Who? I knew nothing about her life. Not now or ever really. My eyes were dry. There was no surge of emotion. Did that mean I was a bad person? She hadn’t been a good mother, but she’d still given me life. That deserved something. A shred of grief. Possibly a tear or maybe a sob.

I glanced around the room, waiting on it to hit.

Nothing happened. Just the numbness.

I should call Jellie.

No, it was four in the morning. I didn’t want to wake her up. She would want me to though. But … but I didn’t want to talk about it. She’d ask me questions, and I’d have to repeat all I’dbeen told.

I dropped my gaze to my phone. I could text Ransom. But after he’d hung up abruptly two days ago during our first-ever phone conversation, he’d not texted or called since. I was trying to not take it personally. We often went days, even a week without texting. But he’d called. And he was reading my book. Dread, embarrassment, humiliation—all kinds of emotions hit with that thought. Proof I could feel.

I felt a lot where Ransom Carver was concerned.

Where my mother’s death was concerned, I had nothing.

I couldn’t even manage shame for not feeling anything.

My mother’s death, having to pack up and go to Madison, handle her burial or cremation, clean out her trailer—all the things I should be working out, but I shoved them aside, as if they were of no importance, to focus on my telling Ransom that I watched porn.

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