Page 45 of Summer Affair
Jillian: Sometimes it’s worth it to get a little burned.
Unknown: …
There was a long pause and Jillian began to sweat. It was impossible to know how someone interpreted a texted comment. With no way to understand intention or tone, it was easy for a flirty text to be taken the wrong way. Just when she was about to type JK her phone pinged.
Unknown: Am I worth it?
Jillian’s heart tugged at his question because it confirmed her earlier surmise, that deep down, beneath the easy-going smile and confident swagger, was the shadow of a boy who questioned his worth, often putting his needs last—and the man who still carried those scars.
Jillian threw the covers back and, flicking on the lamp, walked to the window. She wanted him to see the truth in her eyes when she answered. He was standing right across the stream, the windowsill covering his lower half.
Instead of texting him back, she dialed his number. He answered on the first ring. He didn’t say hello and neither did she. They just stood there, silently watching the other.
“Yes,” she finally said. “You’re worth it.”
Again, they fell silent, then he placed a palm against the window. “I want to touch you right now.”
“I want to be touched,” she whispered. “By you.”
Jillian’s window was floor to ceiling, so there wasn’t hiding much. His gaze tracked down every inch of her body and back to her eyes.
“Go lock your door, then pull that big chair over to the window and face it toward me.”
Sexual heat flashed as hot as a furnace. Jillian set her phone on the chair and hurried across the room to lock her door. On the way back, she gripped the arms of the chair and scooted it over, sitting down. Nerves made her hands tremble and something more potent made her body shake.
“I’ve never done this before,” she admitted quietly.
Even from twenty feet, she could make out the smile in his eyes. “Then we’ll both have to figure it out together.”
She nodded. “Now what?”
“Sit down and scooch to all the way to the end.” His voice was thick and rough with want. Or maybe it was need. Either way, it stoked her hormones.
She shimmied to the edge of the seat, sitting primly. “Like this?”
“Just like that. Now relax your legs and lean all the way back.”
She did as instructed, glancing down at her pajamas which had ridden all the way up, then back at him, and he grinned. Understanding bloomed. “But you’ll be able to see everything.”
“I might not be able to touch you, Cupcake. But I sure as hell want to watch you.”
Any trace of shyness vacated when she watched his eyes blaze with fire. “What comes next?”
“You show me, if I were there, where would you want my hands?”
No hesitation, no warm-up, Jillian knew what she wanted and where she wanted his hands. She slid her fingers down her stomach and beneath the silky waistband of her bottoms. She didn’t go further than an inch beneath the fabric, wanting to wait for him to tell her what came next—and she really hoped it was her.
“Here,” she said. “I’d want them here.”
“I like there. In fact, that’s exactly where I’d put them,” he said. “Although I would have started the journey a little further north, starting at your lips and down your throat, over those perfect tens of yours that I fantasize about.”
“You fantasize about them?” All she saw when she looked in the mirror were the marks of a woman who’d birthed a child. But she could tell by the desire in his gaze that he saw her as a woman—period. And something about that gave her a kind of confidence she hadn’t felt since she was in college.
“To the point of distraction,” he said. “You know what else I fantasize about? You taking your finger and ever so lightly brush it back and forth.”
As a single mom, who hadn’t had the time to date let alone sleep with a man, Jillian knew her body well, but having him direct her was the most erotic thing she’d ever felt. So she followed his instructions to the very word, moving her finger like a feather.
“Oh my,” she moaned. “Again?” she asked, letting him know he was in the driver’s seat.
