Read Online PosterBoyForAverage by Sommer Marsden - Free Book Online Page B

a sound of pain in there too.
A sound of distress.
    She grabbed his face and continued the kiss where he’d left
off. “What is it?”
    He shook the phone at her, trying to smile, but failing
miserably. “This is why I said we were a bad idea. So don’t let those feelings
of yours get hurt. Okay? It’s not you, Aubrey. Never you.” He brushed his lips
over hers once more and she smelled her own scent on his mouth. She opened for
his tongue and kissed him back.
    “Jesus,” Mike said, pulling back. “Never you.”
    Then he hurried off and left her standing there in her dusty
basement, feeling very confused and more than a little turned-on.
    “Well, damn,” Aubrey whispered to no one. “That was
interesting.”
     

Chapter Nine
     
    She’d managed to take a shower, finish a book cover, send it
off to the editor of said book and then make a few phone calls. Her mind kept
returning to Mike and what he’d said without really saying anything at all.
    “This is why I said we were a bad idea,” he’d said. But he’d
never said what this was. She tried to not speculate but it was impossible.
    “Maybe it was a roofing emergency,” she said, trying to
joke. She didn’t even laugh at her own joke.
    Bruce sat up straight, ears perked, tongue out, body on
alert. It always freaked her out when he did that. “What?” she hissed.
    His tail thumped once, twice, three times and then he was
off like a shot. She was close on his tail. Before she even called out to him,
the doorbell rang.
    He only did that—the non-barking thing—when the person at
the door was someone he knew. Aubrey’s heart sped up and she had a fleeting
moment of hope where she let herself wish upon a distant unseen star that the
person at the door was Mike. That he’d come in to finish what they’d started.
She’d allowed herself to daydream him there in her basement, lifting her leg,
fingering her wetness, slipping inside her. Fucking her there against the wall
in the chaos that was currently her basement.
    But it would not seem like chaos with him there. With him
inside her. Amazing, she realized, how quickly he’d come to take up space
inside her head. How fast he’d become part of her normal backdrop of life.
    She didn’t even look, just flung the door open. So there was
no schooling her face when the person who waited for her was Bradlee. Waving a
DVD case at her.
    “I’m bored as shit. Wanna watch a movie?” Her sister brushed
past her. “I know. I know that it’s supposed to be work time for you. And
you’re your own boss. And that we all need to realize that you actually do work
for yourself. Trust me. We all have gotten that lecture.”
    “Bradlee—”
    “But just this once? Just once. Watch…” She turned the DVD
case to face her. “Watch The Lost Woman with me!”
    She looked desperate.
    “What the hell is going on?” Aubrey asked and let her in.
“Why are you so needy?”
    “I did not realize with my husband away and my daughter on a
playdate that I would be so bloody fucking bored. She’s not getting dropped off
until nine.”
    “I think bloody and fucking are basically the same thing,”
Aubrey said.
    Bradlee waved the case at her. “Whatever. Hurry. Is there
wine?”
    “There can be.”
    Bradlee followed her into the kitchen and Aubrey wondered if
her sister would notice.
    “You took a shower,” her sister said.
    Aubrey stayed with her back to her sister, pouring wine. If
Bradlee could see her face, all bets would be off. “I do it damn near every
day.”
    “I thought you took a shower earlier.”
    “I did. That was the shower you’re talking about.” Lies.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
    Bradlee lifted a hunk of Aubrey’s hair. Her wet, wet hair. “Um…no.
Your hair should be at least half-dry. So why—” Then she gasped and yanked on
Aubrey’s hair hard enough for her head to snap back.
    “Ow! Jesus Christ, Brad!”
    “Sorry, sorry,” Bradlee said, smoothing Aubrey’s hair and
trying not to