"Um, not really." I winced. I needed another drink. "Look, all I know is, I used to wake up with wood almost every day." I ground my teeth. God damn, I wasn't about to tell Mike how Hannah could get me hard just looking at me, how her voice made my cock perk up, how I hardened instantly in her hand.
My throat started to burn. I rubbed my jaw.
"I just need some fucking Viagra," I snapped. "I need to get off, alright? I need the release. I'm going crazy."
"Medication is an option," Mike said, "but I can't prescribe treatment to a healthy young man without doing a workup first. Erectile dysfunction is often the result of organic—"
"Meeting over." I ended the call and tossed my phone onto the couch.
A healthy young man.
Maybe Mike had a point. Maybe my dick would be more interested in life if I stopped drinking myself into oblivion. Somehow, though, I doubted it.
I opened a bottle of beer and sat at the kitchen table. I ran my pen along the spiral ring of my notebook. I could skip the sex scene, come back to it later. But how would I handle the rest of the novel? The sex wasn't exactly incidental to the plot. Fuck.
I'd deleted the pictures of Hannah from my phone months ago. I didn't deserve to have them, and I knew she wouldn't want me looking at them. Still, I tried to remember them as I moved a hand between my legs.
I tried to remember that first time when we were strangers on the internet.
Hannah. You should let your robe hang open.
And the second time, when I saw her picture and grew hard looking at it.
The third time, in a motel in Montana.
God, you're perfect. Lie down. Put the phone near your ear. I want you to have both hands free.
I remembered her dark, heavy hair strewn across my thighs. Her fingertips brushing my cock for the first time. Her mouth, the bend of her knee. The sunlight on her eyelashes.
Beneath my hand, my cock didn't even twitch.
I hurled my bottle across the room. It crashed into the wall and beer and glass rained down. Laurence bolted to the corner of his cage with a loud thump.
"Sorry," I mumbled. "Fuck, sorry Laurence."
I shoved my notebook away. I stood and went down, my ankle twisting under me. The pain was a blessed relief. The floor rose to meet me and I tumbled right through it, down into the river of forgetfulness.
CHAPTER 24
Hannah
_____
MY FLIGHT OUT of DIA was delayed, which gave me more time to wonder how totally I'd lost my mind.
It didn't, unfortunately, give me time to back out. Not with Nate shadowing me like a bodyguard. The asshole had neglected to mention that his travel plans included us flying east together and then driving five hours from Newark to Geneva.
I was looking at nine hours of quality time with Matt's brother.
As if this weren't awkward enough.
"Hannah, please," Nate said, trying for the twentieth time to extract my carryon from my shoulders. I grasped the straps of my backpack.
"I've got it," I snapped. I shot an acid look at Nate and he frowned. Ugh, I felt instantly penitent. These rich... arrogant... presumptuous... good-looking assholes! How could they be so infuriating and so pitiful at the same time?
Pity and fury: the same emotions I felt when I thought about Matt.
Matt, the man I was going to rescue.
It was the first weekend in October, which had given me about one week to mull over Nate's request. And I did pretend to mull, though my decision was made the moment I heard Matt was drinking.
I approached Pam about the time off. As usual when Pam didn't want to discuss something, she barely looked up from her computer.
"Yes, it's fine Hannah. I've already spoken with Nathaniel about it. I'll be in LA that weekend and Laura is in Chicago. We'll shut down the office."
"The thing is," I said, "I'm not sure how long I'll be gone. It might take longer than one weekend. I don't really know."
"Yes, it's fine. It's all fine, Hannah. Believe it or not, I can survive without you."
Pam glanced at me. Fuck, she probably thought I was fishing for a paid vacation, which I definitely was not. Thanks to Nate, I had five thousand extra dollars in my bank. I wondered if Pam knew about that. I wondered if Matt knew. Maybe it was Matt's money.