Straddling the Line - By Sarah M. Anderson Page 0,52
set down her cue. “I’m about done playing for tonight.” She put her hands on his cheeks and pulled him into her until her lips scorched his. The idling erection he’d been trying to ignore went full throttle in a heartbeat. When she pulled away from him, she licked her lips and breathed, “You?”
“Finished.” His cue clattered to the ground and he actually swept her off her feet. There was a first for everything.
For the first time, the size of his place bugged him. Between dancing around the furniture and kissing Josey, it took forever to get back to the bed. She was wearing a red bra with a matching pair of panties that sat low on her hips and begged a man to peel them off. He was willing—more than willing—to put the time and energy into a right and proper seduction, but when he had her nude before him, her body already wet for him, he barely got the condom on before he took what she so willingly gave him.
She rose to meet him again and again. She dug her nails into his back—not enough to draw blood, but enough that the sensation spurred him on. She felt so damn good. Everything about her was good. His name sounded just right coming out of her mouth as a moan. Her legs fit just so around his waist. He tried to go slow, but he couldn’t hold back. Not with her. Something about her…
After she’d gotten cleaned up and they’d wrapped themselves around each other in bed, Ben said, “I like this.”
“Just ‘like’? I’ll try harder next time,” she said with a sleepy yawn. Underneath the covers, she stretched out her legs and stroked his ankle with her toes.
“Not just that—all of this. Dinner, pool—and that. I like it all. I like you.”
She got very still before taking a careful breath. “I like you, too.”
There it was again—that strange feeling. This happiness thing was getting out of hand.
Ben was getting used to it.
*
“Well, well, well.” Jenny launched a paint roller at Josey’s head. “Look who’s back.”
Josey threw the roller back. “It’s been, what? Three days? I don’t consider that ‘gone.’”
Jenny was like a bulldog. Once she latched onto an idea, she wouldn’t let go of it until it was good and dead. “So, how is he?”
Josey did a quick check, but the two women were alone in the seventh-and eighth-grade room. Everyone else was outside using as many power tools as the generators could support. She could hear Don bellowing instructions through the walls.
The second time in two days someone had asked her that question. And, once again, she had no intention of answering. Instead, she made a play for Jenny’s outsize maternal instincts. “Have you talked to Jared recently? He was feeling a little picked on at the powwow.”
Jenny let out a short laugh. “Nice try, but you didn’t think that would work, did you? You show up at a powwow with Mr. Super Hunk, disappear for three days and expect nobody to put one and one together?”
Oh, heavens, people were talking. Guessing. And, by all estimations, getting close to the truth. The churning anxiety made Josey’s stomach turn worse than drinking sour milk. Was it better or worse that she’d run into Jenny first? When she went out to talk to Don later, would he meet her eyes, or would he barely acknowledge her existence?
No. She would not let other people define her. She knew what she wanted, and right now, what she wanted was not to talk about her love life. What she wanted was for everything to be normal. And the one way she knew how to ensure that was to act as normal as she could.
Josey pulled herself up to her full height and looked down her nose at her cousin. “I expect certain people to mind their own business.”
Like she could intimidate Jenny. The woman was a force to be reckoned with. She bounced on the balls of her feet and clapped her hands. “Ooh. Either really bad or really, really good. Does he live in a garage or a palace?”
“If I tell you, can we get to work?” Jenny nodded and made a big show of mixing the paint. “Can you keep it to yourself?” Jenny nodded even more enthusiastically. Luckily, Josey knew her cousin would keep that promise—especially if she ever wanted any more tidbits. “Both. He remodeled the top floor of an old factory and parks his bike in it.