So Toxic(Bad Boy Next Door Book 4)(93)

I pick her up. “Did you miss me? Or are you hungry?”

In the kitchen, I set her down by her dry cat food. A dime-sized hole has been eaten out of the middle, where the stainless steel bottom of the dish is visible. I jiggle the container enough so that the food fills in the small space. Chloe’s wailing immediately ceases as she settles down in front of her now full dish to eat breakfast.

I shake my head at my silly kitten, glad she’s here to greet me and bring me back to my everyday world. A world that existed before my hot neighbor moved in, and will exist long after he leaves.

It was only meant to be fun. Something to get my muse in gear. That’s it. That’s all he offered, and that’s all I accepted.

So what if he’s a man-whore? Maybe that’s what I needed.

So what if he held me and entwined his body with mine as we slept? So what if I woke several times in the night to find him stroking my arm, my back, my side, my hip, even my hair, as though he couldn’t touch me enough?

So what if Adam made me feel more cherished in one night of out-of-this-freaking-world oral sex and cuddling than my husband did over the last few years of our marriage?

It’s not a big deal. It really doesn’t matter.

I mean, he’s a hard-core bachelor and not going to want anything long-term with a mom.

He’s obviously been banging a shit ton of women.

Do I want to waste my emotions on a man-whore?




I shut my laptop and set it aside before I throw it across the damned room.

Nothing.

I’ve been sitting in this seat since seven forty-three this morning, with the exception of a couple of trips to the bathroom and a twenty-minute break for lunch. Now, it’s almost four in the afternoon.

I have so little to show for all that time.

“Sir Rodrigo, unhand me!” I twist away, my wrist at my forehead.

“Nay, my lady love. You have escaped me for the last time.” He grabs the bodice of my gown, ripping it asunder. “I shall have you.”

My bared flesh burns for him. Though I know it is wrong, my loins long for his touch.

Alas, I must not allow myself to be consumed by this wretched fire.

He clasps my hands behind my back, his mouth falling against the rosy tips of my budded globes. “I shall plunge my manly sword into your velvet sheath.”

My heart flutters beneath my breasts. “Your sword, sir?”

“Aye. It is long and steely hard. It must be wetted and sated by you this night.”

One-hundred and twenty-two words. That’s all I’ve written.

I needed to write four thousand words.

I used to be able to write four thousand words in that span of time. Until my life fell out from under me and one of my best friends left me for my husband.

Or was it that my husband left me for one of my best friends?

Either way, they both abandoned me.

My stomach clenches, and that weird nausea that I get when I think of her rolls through me.

I’d have wiped Marcy’s ass if she’d needed me to—we were that close. I’d have given her a kidney or a lung. I’d have done just about anything for her.

I considered her my heart-sister, because I was closer with her than I was with my blood-relations. She and Leigh are the sisters I chose, the people I invited into my life and kept close because we held each other up and made each other’s lives better.

Until she betrayed me.

I drag in a sharp breath.

Matt’s infidelity didn’t really surprise me. It was the third time he fucked around on me. I only stayed with him because of Clarissa. I didn’t want her to grow up in a broken home.

And frankly? Being a single mom is tough. My mom told me so enough throughout my childhood. I had no illusions that things would be better without him. So…the other times, when he begged me to take him back, I did.

But Marcy?

I’d never have thought she was capable of this type of thing. Elementary school teachers are supposed to be wholesome and good. And she was—or so I thought. And we’d been best friends for almost six years. She threw six years of friendship away on a guy she already knew is a cheater.

Three times makes him a serial cheater in my book. Thus the exit from my life.

Well, I like to tell myself that’s why he’s gone.

In reality? He doesn’t want me back—I’m not so sure he ever really wanted me at all. I was dumped.

In fact, I was dumped twice—in one day—by people I loved.

Love. Actively love.

Present tense.

That’s the thing that burns my ass. Even though they’ve ripped my heart out, I still love them.

I mean, I don’t love Matt the same as I did when I was in love with him. But I do still care about him. Though I so wish I didn’t care at all. Oh, how I wish I didn’t.