Page 20 of Pawn's in the Bishop's Game (Checkmate 1)

5

Jess

Double Standards

Sweating. Shaking. Grinding.

In that order.

I feel the sweat beneath my body. The moisture in my hair. The way it sticks to my skin and half strangles me in my sleep.

Without opening my eyes, I know it’s light outside. Red washes through my eyelids and sears my brain.

It feels like the morning after a Club 188 night. Like the girls dragged me out and poured tequila down my throat. Like maybe we ran down to the lake and skinny-dipped before finally dragging our soggy asses back across town and throwing ourselves into bed.

All of the above has happened before.

None of the above are the actions exclusively delegated to silly teens or twenty-one year olds.

All of the above happened as recently as last month after a family wedding.

Oscar ‘Oz’ Franks, this town’s deputy and second only to Alex, married his sweetheart, Lindsi.

Alex got drunker than I’ve ever known him, got into a verbal beatdown with a sixteen-year-old, announced his wife – Juliette – is pregnant, then went on to spew everything back up again into the potted ficus in the corner of the reception room.

An hour after that, my sister – by blood, notextra– ditched her boyfriend for the first time this year and dared us to go to the lake.

My pleasure!

I woke the next day to similar sweating. To the shaking that promised a ficus-like ralphing session. Even to the weird grinding.

Hungover me is horny, I guess.

But unlike that time, today, the way my hips move, the pulse in my blood, the pulse between my legs finds temporary relief each time I slide forward.

With a smile on my face and screwed-shut eyes, I stay in my dream world and pleasure myself because,why the hell not?

I haven’t been laid in months.

I’m busy, I rarely go out anymore – skinny dipping and Inferno club attempts, excluded. I haven’t been out on a date in I don’t even know how long. I was one of few single people at Oz’s wedding.

My brother is dating Kari.

My sister is dating that asshole that no one likes.

Everyone had a date, then there was me, waiting for Lindsi to throw the bouquet just so I could catch it and pretend it was an accident I was front and center.

I’m a feminist. A capable woman of the twenty-first century. I don’t need a date, I don’t need to catch the bouquet, and I sure as hell don’t need a boyfriend.

But a little grinding action in my sleep wouldn’t go astray.

“Mmm.” Smiling like a fool, I slide my hands along the body my dream conjures. So much muscle. Smooth and tempting.

Attagirl, Jess. Build him up. Give me a damn Adonis.

My breath explodes out when I tweak my ribs, but then my clit rubs along something that sends out-of-this-world pleasure racing through my blood and suddenly, the pain in my ribs is forgotten.

Why must I only have nice dreams when I’m hungover?

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