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Sidney
The lake soothes something in me. Not something that’s surface or even tangible, but almost like a part of my soul needed it.
Whatever it is.
I’ve been in Norhill Tops just over a week, and in that time, I’ve found myself wondering how it would be to live here in a small town. The place I bought is meant to be what it is; isolated, near a town and a city where I can reach within a few hours, where I can get to an airport to go anywhere I might want.
This is different.
A small town like Norhill Tops is networks and family and friends. It’s small, yes, but huge in the way that people interact. And in this modern world, I can sit here by the lake and work.
Of course, I’ve been working on the jobs I had set up to start at my new home. And after that . . . nothing. I didn’t want to put out feelers for work until I got there, but maybe I need to do that now, because I’m here for a while longer.
I close my eyes. The night before, I turned up at Mack’s a little tipsy and now . . .
I don’t even know what it is we’re doing. What did he say this morning when he dropped me off here? It’s a day-by-day thing, and soon enough, my car will be fixed and I can be on my way.
The bland way he said that didn’t match the glint in his eye, and my equally bland response certainly doesn’t express the growing pull to him that’s in me.
This morning he never asked again about what I shut down after we had no-holds barred hot sex in his kitchen and then slow, insane, intimate sex in his bed. That has to be a win, right?
Both the sex and the no more questions.
I shift my computer on my lap and tuck my feet under me on the loveseat, the glass of wine I poured sometime after lunch as a reward for getting work done only half drunk.
The sex is . . . I don’t even know what it is. I’ve never had anything like that in my life. Even now, I can feel him, his hot mouth on me, the slow, dreamy kisses that make my toes curl and my body throb. I can feel his fingers as he pushes them into me. I can—
I stop, breathing hard.
It’s sex. It isn’t real, not beyond physical pleasure.
Sure, he claimed he’d be a knight for me, something I’d fantasized about him being, but I don’t need that in the real world.
He’s a man who takes control. He’s alpha and comfortable with it. He’ll wear a frilly apron and banter with a little kid. He can melt a woman at fifty paces, and he’ll throw down a man if he dares treat that woman wrong.
He controls. Protects.
And that’s fine.
But for me?
Isn’t that me switching out one cage for a prettier more seductive one? A cage is just that, a cage.
To be locked into and protected for my own good. With my parents, it’s so I don’t embarrass them, and I finally make a match they deem perfect for me. I know it’s beyond them wanting to look good, they want to protect me too. But they want a husband for me of good standing who’ll keep me secure in money and trappings.
Mack wants to protect me and keep me safe because . . . because he thinks I can’t do that? He thinks because he seems to have guessed there might be something else that I need my own personal hero?
But this is all moot.
I need to get my car working, and I need to get to my new home, so I can get back to work on the software and start taking on and seeking out the jobs I want to do. I need space and time for that.
I look at the jobs I’ve had on my computer for the past hour. They’re doable, and if I take them, it’s money. But money per se isn’t my issue. Cash is if we want to get down to that side of it.
My issue here is I don’t want to take scraps. I don’t want to get by on small amounts because I have money in my account. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to take tiny jobs for less than my fee, but I need to establish. Showcase what I can really do, and how, when my software is ready, it can benefit others.
I want to seek out the work that builds my portfolio into something special.
But to do that, I need to have jobs coming in to show I’m working.
