is. That he’s always been in love with you.”
I stop dead in my tracks, cocking my head to one side. “What new security camera?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Steven
“TONIGHT HAS TO be the most romantic fucking date of my life. We leave next week and I need—notice I said need to be inside of her. Do you know how long it’s been? The thoughts that knock around my noggin when I’m sex deprived aren’t pretty,” I tell Cody. He’s hanging at my place after we worked out at the boxing gym together.
Cody takes a swig of beer. “Is Chloe texting you still?”
Sighing, I admit, “Yes. Just keeping in contact, though.”
“How exclusive are you with Morganna?” he asks.
“No.” That’s not even in the equation. It could be if I want to fuck up everything. “Patience. I just need some patience, that’s it. You were the one that told me to get rid of the girlfriends in the first place!”
Cody laughs, staring at me from across the room. “You’re twitching. You can’t just proclaim to be a cured manwhore. You were getting it every other night, right? How long has it been now?”
I’m so hard up that I don’t even give him a hard time for asking me such questions when he probably hasn’t been laid in months. Don’t get me wrong—I go months and months without sex when I’m deployed, but I don’t have hot, naked women with wet pussies hovering over my dick on the regular then. It’s easy to throw myself into work when the object of my wildest dreams isn’t in front of me on a regular basis. We’ve done everything except have sex. Everything with her in control of what happens, mind you. It was hot at first, but now I want a slice of the control pie. Handcuffs? Maybe her blindfolded? I’d settle for full privileges with her entire body.
I shake my head. “Weeks? A month?” I can’t think straight. Morganna from the past, present, and future wreaks havoc on my mind and body. I grab my beer from the counter and press a frozen steak on my eye. Cody socked me one good at the boxing gym and I have a rising, red welt above my eye. With the icing I’m hoping it doesn’t swell shut.
Keeping the cold meat on my face, I tilt my head back and finish my beer. “You can’t even say anything. How long has it been for you?”
“Last night,” Cody says, anticipating the question. He snatches my cell phone off the table in front of him and starts tapping the screen.
I’m so preoccupied with the mental image of him banging Lainey that I don’t even second-guess what he’s doing. Probably looking up sex on the Internet because he doesn’t know more than one position.
I grimace and then gesture for him to explain when he looks back up. “Lainey and I are sort of a thing. Since the party, you know?”
I didn’t know. Because I’m so absorbed with Morganna and doing everything the right way. Part of me wants to say fuck it and just handle things the way I always handle things. No finesse and crude jokes. Cody shakes his head and pats Gunner on the head when he trots by on the way to the front door.
“I had no idea. Must be going well if you’ve knocked boots more than once and she didn’t head for the hills,” I joke, shaking my head. He smiles, looking down toward his feet. “Does Morganna know?”
He meets my gaze. “ She does know. They’re neighbors, remember? And it is going quite well, it’s very convenient so don’t jinx it, asshole. We shouldn’t even be talking about me right now. Why don’t you try practicing the art form known as honesty? Tell Morganna how you feel. Tell her you want to fuck her so your head doesn’t pop off. Tell her all of the other sordid details that I’m sure track through your mind. You say she knows you so well. She won’t be surprised be then, right?”
I shift from one bare foot to the other, weighing whether I want to come clean with my friend or not. “She wants control…” I say low, my head turned away. I place my hands on my hips.
“Like in the bedroom?” Cody asks, incredulously, eyes widening. He’s heard stories from my conquests and can deduce from three words exactly what this means. “And you’re giving it to her?”
I shrug. “I have to, man. Now maybe you can better understand why