Read Online Missing by Noelle Adams - Free Book Online Page A

breathed, not really knowing how to
respond. “But I’m sure he loves you anyway.”
    “I don’t know.” Beth was staring down at her coffee cup. She
gave a little shrug then, as if her father was a burden she had no choice but
to shrug away in order to keep on living.
    “My parents weren’t perfect,” Lynn said after a long,
awkward pause. “There was a time when I’d barely talk to them at all. Parents
fuck up. Sometimes a lot. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.”
    Beth gave another little shrug. “I hope so.”
    “ ’ I know it’s not my business, but you
should try to talk to him. I’m sure he misses you like crazy. What about your
sister?”
    “I had to…to leave her too.”
    Lynn had no idea about the details of the Broadview family
situation, but she could imagine. A narrow-minded, small-town man who wanted
his smart, pretty daughter to fall into the life he thought she should lead,
very likely involving getting married young and remaining in the same small
town for the rest of her life.
    If Beth felt the need to get away from that, Lynn couldn't
blame her. Beth was an adult—although she looked about sixteen years old—and
she was capable of making her own decisions.
    Lynn changed the subject to something innocuous, and Beth
was obviously relieved.
    ***
    Much later than evening, Lynn turned
on the television as she got into bed.
    She was tired, and she thought she might actually be able to
go to sleep tonight without getting wrapped up in thoughts about Nathan.
    She would see him tomorrow. It would finally be the 24th.
The month was almost over.
    She flipped to the local news, although it rarely told her
anything she didn’t already know. She liked to watch the late night news,
though—mostly to see how they were spinning the stories.
    The first story was on another press conference that Nathan Livingston
had given earlier in the day. It wasn’t on anything important—something
connected to the Livingston Foundation, the charitable foundation his
grandfather had founded.
    Lynn didn't listen to the words, since she’d heard most of
the sound-bites earlier in the day, but she stared at Nathan’s handsome face
and the lean power with which he held himself, and she wanted him viscerally.
    She remembered giving him a blow job in the hotel shower
last month, how much he’d gotten into it. She thought about how he’d lost
control, how his face had looked when he came.
    Then Lynn imagined coming to see him in his fancy office. Kneeling
down and undoing his pants, taking him in her mouth.
    She imagined him losing control in his office. She imagined
the feel of his flesh in her mouth, the way his responses to her would turn her
on too. She imagined him coming hard, so hard he couldn’t keep quiet.
    And then she imagined the softening of all the tension in
his body, the way he would relax, gasp in satisfaction, and let go of the
brutal hold he kept on the world. He would look down on her afterwards with the
same expression of shocked awe that he had in the shower last month, as if he
couldn’t believe she’d made him feel that way.
    As if no one else could make him feel the way she could.
    Lynn’s imaginings quickly spiraled out of control. With a
frustrated groan, she reached into the drawer of her nightstand to retrieve her
little vibrator—which she’d returned there after using and then cleaning it
last night.
    It didn’t take her long to come. She collapsed limply on her
bed, feeling relaxed, but not satisfied.
    Her craving for Nathan was simply physical, though, and the
orgasms should tide her over until tomorrow night.
    She was perfectly happy with her life, and Nathan was the
epitome of an emotionally unavailable man.
    She wasn't about to start thinking about this thing with him
as anything more than a physical release.
    After a minute, she heaved herself up to clean the vibrator
and return it to the nightstand drawer.
    When she’d gone to the bathroom, washed her face and