The Boy Who Has No Faith (Soulless 5)

I grabbed her arms and gently pulled them down. “I said I need to leave.”

“Babe, come on.” Her hands moved up my chest, and she rose on her tiptoes again, looking at my mouth. “I want you to stay.” With blond hair, blue eyes, and skin so soft it was like touching rose petals, she was the face on every billboard, the woman in the sexiest pieces of lingerie women wanted to own.

“Fleur.” My voice filled with authority.

She sighed quietly, knowing I meant business. “Alright…”

I pulled away from her and stepped out the door.

“I’ll see you soon.”

I didn’t turn around before I walked off.

I sat across from Ryan at the bar, making a pit stop on my way home. It’d been a long day at the office, and my knuckles ached because I’d used my hands so much, working on the model my team would bring to scale very soon. When I got home, I had to grade a stack of exams that should have been returned to my students a week ago. But I chose to waste my time sitting in front of a computer doing absolutely nothing.

Ryan drank from his beer as he stared at me. “Dude, you’re the most successful person from our class, but you’re also the most miserable.”

I snapped back to the conversation, looking at my childhood friend. We met in grade school and had been friends ever since. Ryan worked on Wall Street and made rich people even richer. He was such a good financial planner that I even gave him some of my money to invest—and he made an incredible return. “I’m not miserable.”

“Then I can’t think of a better word to describe it.”

“Exhausted?”

“I guess. But you still look miserable.”

“I’ve got so much shit to do… I shouldn’t even be here.”

“Come on.” He pushed my beer closer to me. “We haven’t seen each other in weeks. How’s Fleur?”

I drank from my beer and considered the question for a long time.

He was used to my long pauses by now.

The answer I finally gave was a shrug.

“You’re dating the sexiest lingerie model in the world…and your answer is a shrug.”

“We aren’t dating.”

“Are you sleeping with anyone else?”

I shook my head.

“Then you’re dating.”

“Or I just don’t have the time to go out and pick up someone else.”

“Come on, man. You’re monogamous, and you know it.”

Fleur was stunning, and her French accent was a turn on. When we were together, it was fucking cosmic. The sex was amazing. I kept coming back over and over because it was addictive. It was emotional and passionate, and it didn’t make sense to pick up another woman when the sex would be disappointing in comparison. From an objective standpoint, continuing the arrangement was simply more efficient. “Yes. But it doesn’t mean anything more than that.” I’d told her that was the most we would ever be. I didn’t do relationships or commitments. We were just monogamous fuck buddies.

“Derek, what are you doing? You have the most gorgeous woman in the world, and you don’t want anything more than that?”

I shook my head.

“Are you ever going to be in a relationship?”

I stared at him and drank my beer. “I’m just not interested in that.”

He studied me for a while, turning serious. “It’s been ten years since the whole thing with Tabitha—”

“It has nothing to do with that.” Kevin, Tabitha, Ryan, and I were all childhood friends, going through high school together before we separated to other colleges, even though I’d started taking college classes early. But Tabitha was my high school sweetheart, and we kept our relationship strong over the long distance. When we graduated, I didn’t want to be apart anymore, so I asked her to marry me. I hadn’t seen her since that fateful night. “I’m dedicated to my work, and something mundane like a relationship just doesn’t interest me anymore.” Tabitha’s and Kevin’s betrayal hurt for a year or so, but I got over it. I never thought about either one of them, was happy with what I’d accomplished in my life. I wasn’t living in the past. “I want good sex. I want to enjoy it as much as I can. That’s it. Why would I want to be in a relationship when I can just have different gorgeous women to keep me company?”

“That’s fine now. But what about when you’re older? You don’t want something more than that?”

“You and Camille are perfect together, and I’m very happy for you both. But not everyone is the same, Ryan.” He was a monogamous man, happy with the same woman for years. When I watched them together, it was obvious they both genuinely loved each other. “My brain is wired differently. That sort of thing might be satisfying to you, but it’s not to me. I’m too technical.”

“You’re a writer…”