Page 9 of Wild and Bright

“It was what I thought. She wants to do our social media. I told her it’s not my place to give her that job.”

A cynical smile rises to my lips. “I’ll bet she didn’t like that. I’ll bet she tried to bulldoze you into it.”

“No.” His voice is quiet, almost hesitant. “She didn’t have to, because I’m pretty sure I’m going to give her another job.”

Uneasiness settles over me. “What kind of job? Don’t tell me you’re going to make her your PA and pay her twice what she’s worth?”

“No.” Again, there’s that far-off tone, and it sounds alarm bells in my mind. I never know what to expect when it comes to these two. Ever since we were kids, it’s been bossy Lauren leading him around like a puppy on a leash.

I hated her for it then.

I hated him for all the attention he got from her.

And I hated myself the most for my disloyalty.

“I think I’m going to be her sugar daddy for a while.”

My eyes snap to his face. “What?”

It’s only when he jerks back that I realize I nearly shouted at him. “You can’t be serious,” I say, lowering my voice with effort.

His brows draw together in a puzzled frown. He probably didn’t expect I’d react this way. He thought I’d be angry and domineering.

Not frantic.

“I mean…” His frown deepens. “I guess…not really a sugar daddy, but she’ll be my wife. Paid wife. Like, she’ll take care of me and stuff, and I’ll give her some money and let her and Cadence live with me.”

It’s the “take care of me and stuff” that makes my pulse race. What does it mean?

“It’s a good situation since we’ll be in San Diego for the next six months. I was going to just let them live with me no strings attached, but Lauren doesn’t want to be a freeloader. She said she’ll be my fifties housewife.” He smiles slowly, and it makes me want to hit him. “She’ll make my meals, do my laundry, give me massages—”

“And I assume sex is included?” I wish my voice weren’t so tight, but I couldn’t tone it down if I tried.

The wide-eyed frown forming on his face makes me wonder if I jumped to conclusions, and the tension in my shoulders eases a little. But then he smiles lazily.

Oh God. This is as bad as I feared.

“I mean that’s what wives do, right?” he says, and I feel like the concrete has opened up underneath me.

In a flash, I see them together, just as I found them at the college party five years ago when I opened that laundry room door. His jeans hang loosely at his hips, and her long willowy fingers are wrapped around his limp dick. In the moment, I could barely comprehend what I was seeing. I was still in a sluggish daze from what I had just done with her. She’d crawled over from the passenger seat, straddled my lap, and given me what felt to my horny virgin brain like my heart’s desire. And even though I stopped her and Hunter from whatever they were about to do, the juxtaposition of both those things was too much.

She gave me what I always wanted. Then she gave me what I always feared. All in the span of twenty minutes.

As usual, the memory of it all makes my pulse beat like a hammer against my throat, and a prickling heat breaks out over my skin. I hate thinking about it.

It’s almost unbearable.

Especially when I think about my part in it. I’d practically dared her to fuck Hunter. I was crushed and humiliated when I found out she wasn’t a virgin, too. The full weight of my one-sided obsession finally hit me, and I wanted to shrink inside myself.

Instead, I slut-shamed her.

“You can’t do it,” I say, surprised at how even my voice sounds.

The smile fades. “Is that a command?”

I grit my teeth at the ice in his voice. “She isn’t good for you, especially not so soon after a relapse. She’s a party girl. What would your sponsor say to you right now?”

“You don’t know anything about her if you think she’s still a party girl. And Dave has much better boundaries than you. He wouldn’t say a damn thing.”

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