Cursive - By Phoebe Lane Page 0,27

remembered…He refused to call me anything but Lynny," she said with a smile. "Wow, I really need to go back. Maybe I can make a stop in New York, and keep going from there."

"Where to?"

"I don’t know," she said with a shrug. The world?"

"Those are big plans," Jace said and paused before asking his next question. "You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but how do you support yourself now? I mean, I assume you won't get paid for the novel until it gets published, right?" he asked.

"Yeah, I haven't gotten that far with the book yet. The editor that I'm working with is actually a friend of a friend. She agreed to coach me kind of as a favor. I don't think it's customary to have an editor work with you this early in development process," she said and paused to take a sip of her wine.

"But to answer your question…I got a scholarship that paid my whole way through college, and I took out student loans to pay for med school. When my dad died, I got his life insurance money and used it to pay off the loans." Jace nodded along, taking in all the information.

Just tell him.

"I lived with my then boyfriend for a few years during residency, and he insisted on covering all of our living expenses. Most of my paychecks went into savings, so I've been basically living off of that."

"Oh. How long were you guys together?" Jace asked.

"Four and a half years." Aislynn was hoping the questions would stop, but she was also feeling the urge to ask some questions of her own. "How about you? Any long-term relationships you desperately don't want to talk about?" she asked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Yes, two of them, actually. I apparently didn't learn my lesson the first time around," he said with a nervous laugh. "One lasted two years, the other lasted close to a year, and they both ended badly. What do you think all this says about us, babydoc?"

Aislynn thought long and hard about her answer, as he stared back at her with tender curiosity. "It says that we better learn to get it right this time."

Jace smiled and clicked his wine glass with hers. "Cheers to that."

It was still early evening by the time they left the park, but it became quite clear neither of them wanted the date to end. The conversation lingered, the ride home was driven way below the speed limit, and the goodbye at the door became a thirty minute conversation about Jace’s first camping trip and his unfortunate encounter with a sleeping bag loving skunk.

"Okay, this is ridiculous," Jace said.

"What is?" Aislynn asked, hoping his mind was in the same place as hers.

"I don’t want you to go yet. Come in and stay for a while. We can order a pizza and watch a movie?"

"I’d love to," Aislynn said with a smile and a million butterflies in her stomach.

The movie plan went out the window quicker than a teenager could say, "let's make out." Two seconds after sitting down on the sofa, his lips were on hers. Five seconds after that, she was straddling him. The feel of Jace's fingers softly caressing the back of her neck had her shuddering with need. A moan escaped her as he moved his lips down her neck, his hands wandering down to her lower back. No words were needed. It was obvious by their actions that he wanted her and she wanted him. But like she had told him before, Aislynn was pretty judicious about most things in life, and she was struggling with how far she should allow it to go. Things were definitely moving faster than she had anticipated.

She was fighting the desperate need to rub herself against him to get some relief, when he put both hands on her waist and pushed her down into his lap, making them both groan.

God, you feel so good. Keep going, don't stop, she thought, closing her eyes in pleasure.

"I don't plan to," he answered.

"I can't believe I said that out loud. I need to stop doing that," she said, taking shallow breaths, and pulling at his hair to reach for his lips again.

"Please, don’t stop. I want to know what you're thinking. I need to know what you like," he said and kissed her hard, both of them moaning as their tongues touched.

"I love your sex lips. They’re going to be the end of me," she