Page 10 of About that Fling
He took the paper from her and squeezed her hand. “Next Friday. Following your busy work week spying for the Russians and giving aromatherapy to fashion models.”
She nodded, wondering if she should volunteer her real occupation or ask to know something about him besides the fact that he had a killer body and a keen ability to make her laugh and come her brains out in a span of ten minutes.
But his lips found hers, and she forgot all about her questions.
“Until next Friday,” he said, kissing her again, “I’ll be thinking about you.”
Jenna floated all the way home, feeling like a giddy preteen with a secret training bra smuggled under her T-shirt. She hesitated for an instant at the front door, breathing in the fragrance of bacon and homemade potpourri and the heady, comforting scents of home.
It hadn’t always felt like that. Not before Aunt Gertie’s broken hip and Jenna’s broken engagement. Somehow, all the broken pieces had fit themselves together; mended into something that felt more like home than the little bungalow had ever been in the six years Jenna had lived here. As an added bonus, it was only two blocks from Belmont Health System.
She smoothed the front of her dress, then opened the door to a warm cloud of German apple pancakes. She took two steps into the room and tripped over something. Glancing down, she saw a box filled with neat stacks of bookmarks, each one adorned with half-clad bodies and the words Panty Dropper.
She grimaced and nudged the box aside with her toe, tucking it discreetly under the bench by the door. Then she looked up to see two pairs of eyes staring at her.
So much for sneaking in undetected.
“Woohoo!” Mia called, her mouth full of pancake. Her friend tossed her long red hair over one shoulder and grinned. “Look who’s doing the walk of shame.”
Aunt Gertie beamed and set a crystal bowl of powdered sugar on the table. “Congratulations, dear. I’m so proud of you.”
Jenna set her purse down and joined them in the breakfast nook, her cheeks faintly warm with embarrassment. “Jeez, you guys—you’d think I’d earned a promotion at work instead of a notch on my bedpost.”
“You get work promotions all the time,” Mia said, waving a dismissive hand. “An all-nighter with a strange man, on the other hand—that’s a much bigger deal.”
“I appreciated your text message last night, dear,” Gertie said, patting her hand. “I was glad to know you were safe.”
Jenna picked a piece of apple from the edge of Mia’s pancake. “My man friend seemed confused that I needed to text my aunt before sleeping with him,” she admitted. “Once I explained the fling was your idea, he was a little more understanding.”
“‘My aunt told me to bone you,’” Mia said, resting a hand on her baby bump. “That’s what every man wants to hear.”
Gertie gave a satisfied smile as she peered into the oven. “Glad to be helpful.”
“So come on,” Mia said, bouncing a little in her seat. “Give it up—not that you didn’t already. I want details!”
Jenna sighed and nibbled another piece of apple plucked from the corner of her best friend’s pancake. “Can I have ten minutes to shower and change?”
“Okay, but don’t wash off that beard burn. It’s very becoming.”
“Try the cold cream on the counter, dear,” Gertie said. “Very soothing for beard burn.”
Jenna padded toward the bathroom, trying not to think about her aunt’s familiarity with beard burn as she closed the door behind her. She stretched her arms overhead, savoring the pleasant ache of muscles she’d worked overtime the night before. God, had she really done that? It was so unlike her, so rash and impulsive and passionate.
Shawn always wished I was more passionate, she thought as she lathered up her hair. A fling with a stranger probably wasn’t what he had in mind.
Fifteen minutes later, Jenna was scrubbed and dressed in a pair of clean yoga pants with her hair in a ponytail. An apple-flecked pancake sat in front of her and two pairs of eyes drilled her from either side.
“Okay now, spill it,” Mia said, forking a piece of pancake into her mouth. “I want details.”
“There’s not that much to tell,” Jenna answered, accepting the lace-edged napkin Gertie offered. “We were both at Corkscrew last night, we both got stood up by the people we were meeting, we both liked the Pinot?—”
“You both like Ed Sheeran ballads, long walks on the beach, and kinky sex with strangers?” Mia grinned and grabbed the syrup.
“I didn’t say anything about kink,” Jenna protested, her brain flickering over the memory of chocolate sauce from the ice cream sundae that room service had brought them sometime around midnight. She cleared her throat and reached for the coffee pot. “It was just a good, old-fashioned fling.”
“I’m not sure old-fashioned and fling belong in the same sentence, dear.” Gertie set a fresh German apple pancake in front of her niece. “In my day, women had to feel guilty all the time. It’s so nice the things have changed. Now they’re free to have casual sex and multiple orgasms and bookshelves full of erotic novels.”
Gert’s voice had taken on a reverence most women her age reserved for their grandchildren or church services, and Jenna smiled in spite of herself as she picked up a pair of silver tongs and plucked a lemon slice from the plate Gertie offered. She squeezed it over the pancake and set the rind aside before drenching the pancake in syrup. “If it’s okay with the two of you, I’d rather be a little old-fashioned and not dish too much detail.”
