Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 115525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 578(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 578(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Rayne massaged his temples. He’d never experienced love like the one Wood and Trent shared. One that was selfless and fulfilling. The kind of love that ached and hurt, yet felt so damn amazing at the same time. He may have had the opportunity for love once or twice in the past, but Rayne hadn’t recognized it, too busy focusing on himself and his greed. Now he was alone, damn near homeless, with no job, no money, and no prospects for a better life.
One day at a time were the words he lived by.
Rayne barely had a place to lay his head; he needed to not mess this up. Wood and Trent had been nothing but kind to him by allowing him to crash there, and the last thing he wanted to do was come between them. But that was his nature—his addiction affected his life and anyone around him.
“Not anymore. I can do this,” Rayne whispered, reassuring himself. He quickly made his small bed, tucking the well-worn sheets in on the sides and flipping the flimsy quilt over his lone pillow. He’d been used to luxury for a majority of his life: sleeping in five-star hotels, trips on million-dollar yachts, dining in Michelin-star restaurants, living in penthouses with California king-sized beds draped in Egyptian cotton sheets that melted against his skin. It was pitiful and both comforting how far he’d fallen.
For years, Rayne had enjoyed the finer things in life, but it had all come at an expensive cost: his self-respect.
Now, Rayne was just thankful for the little things he’d once thought were beneath him, low-class. He’d deluded himself into believing he had prestige in society because he had good looks and dressed the best. But when the chips fell along with his façade, all he had left was a bunch of material things that meant nothing and a small rented room in Wood and Trent’s trailer that wouldn’t cost him his dignity if he couldn’t pay his way.
Rayne grabbed his toiletry bag and towel and stepped out into the dark hallway, trying to be as quiet as possible. However, he wished he’d taken his earbuds with him because there was no mistaking the sounds he heard from the door opposite his. The squeaking bed, the grunts—not even the jazz music playing could drown out the sound of great sex. Rayne hurried the last few feet down the hall and practically threw himself into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him as if he were being chased.
He supposed he was. By life.
Breathe, he coached himself as he pressed his forehead to the door, his hands clenched over his ears. Wood’s guttural moans continued to reverberate through Rayne’s sex-starved mind, causing his cock to react. Damnit. Breathe… just breathe. Rayne struggled to ignore the ache. He turned on the cold water and flipped the shower lever up, not caring how loud he yelped when the frigid spray hit his overheated skin. Fuck! He braced his hands against the tiles, his fingers trying to puncture through the yellow-tinged ceramic.
His urge to masturbate was stronger than it’d been in a long time, but he would not give in. Thankfully, the freezing water was already starting to do the trick since his teeth were chattering too hard to feel sexy, and his balls had shriveled to the size of baby walnuts. Continuing to take long breaths, he commended himself for fighting it.
After several failed attempts, Rayne was back on track with his recovery program—three months was the furthest he’d ever made it in the past—but now he was almost a year in, and he’d completed most of his steps. All addictions came with challenges, and his was no different. Rayne was terrified, but he knew he could do this. He could live as a recovering sex addict.
That was how he’d met Herschel Wood. They’d both been at the same halfway house, and after Rayne had propositioned him several times, only to keep getting rebuffed, he began to feel protected around Wood. Like his addiction was safe with him. He needed Wood. Rayne had never had a real friendship before that he hadn’t sabotaged. But he wanted to have more because that’s what normal people had, right? They had friends, bills, jobs, lovers, gym memberships, family responsibilities… and they paid taxes! He wanted to keep striving for some degree of, “normalcy.”
Rayne was finally able to add some hot water to his freezing shower after the cold was effective in eliminating his steamy thoughts. He was rough as he scrubbed his body with his washrag, frustrated with the mess he’d made of his life. But instead of letting his thoughts gravitate toward negativity, he remembered his sponsor’s words and focused on the present. Because while his addiction sucked ass and the recovery was ten times worse, he at least had one person in this world he could trust.