This week’s gem had something to do with a feud between Mr. Jensen and his neighbor that started when Mr. Jensen decided to get a dog—a dog that apparently didn’t respect bathroom boundaries.
We lived in a small town. The most excitement we’d ever gotten was when Claire Cunningham’s ex-husband asked the new girl at the salon for more than a haircut. Claire left him. He moved to Atlanta and ended up single again three months later. That was a year ago, and two weeks from now, Claire was marrying the man of her dreams. I gave my girl Karma a mental high five for sorting that mess out.
The ladies from the library came by to thank me for the muffins and get a book recommendation for next week’s meeting. Of course, I nominated Bennett’s book. Oliver Clark filled us in on the world of politics and stories about the “good old days when Reagan was in office.”
By two o’clock, I was more than ready for my afternoon run and daily dose of Netflix. Okay, that was a lie. I was ready for a nap. Then an afternoon run and chick-flick. I didn’t even stay to read in my corner. If I decided to move forward with the bookstore, I’d have to hire more help—especially if I planned on many more late-night phone calls...
Closing at two o’clock was fine when all I served was coffee and breakfast pastries. Adding books meant adding hours, and I already worked nine a day as it was.
I tossed my keys on top of the table in the foyer and thanked heaven that I managed to escape without telling Alyssa anything about Bennett.
Every time I saw Bennett’s name on my phone screen, my knees got weak. My heart pounded in my chest, the bottom of my belly fluttered, and it felt like I might pee a little. It was like fear, hope, and excitement rolled themselves up into one big ball of nerves that my bladder was too weak to handle.
He’d teased me about saving his number in my phone, and I’d played it off like it didn’t matter. The truth was, I’d saved it the minute I hung up after the first call.
He called every night after dinner like he’d set a timer to dial my number. The first few nights, we talked until I fell asleep. I’d gotten so addicted to his voice that I heard it in my sleep. I thought about him all day long.
We talked about everything from celebrities behaving badly to our thoughts on life after death. Not actual life after death, because we agreed no one can be sure what that’s like. But the lives we leave behind after our death. Our families. Our friends. He’d told me that’s why he became a financial consultant. He’d started out helping individuals, people like me and my parents. He’d made it his mission to make sure the people he’d met had a plan, that they weren’t leaving behind a hot mess for their loved ones to clean up. Then it became too much one day. All the talk about wills and estates and death got overwhelming. So, he went corporate and never looked back.
I got the feeling there was more to his decisions than he let on—that there was nothing coincidental about him. Every choice he made stemmed from something deeper. He never talked about it, and I never pried. But sometimes I heard it. It lasted only a split second then it was gone. But there was a pain in his voice that I’d give anything to take away.
Bennett Kane did things to me. He made me feel things I’d never felt before, things I’d thought didn’t exist in real life until now. He was my Darcy.
Every time I drove in a different state, I thanked God I lived in Houston—where restaurants stayed open past six o’clock and people didn’t ask you twenty questions in the grocery store check-out line. Unfortunately, my kid sister talked me into spending the weekend with her scouting out some sleepy little town on the coast of Florida, which happened to be even smaller than the one we grew up in, if that was even possible. It didn’t help that the nearest airport to Sycamore Park was an hour away and the only rental car available was a Ford Focus. Compared to my Denali, I might as well have been driving the Flintstone-mobile.
We passed a Suburban full of sugar-high preteens and way too chipper parents on the Interstate. The “Disney Bound” shoe-polished window and overexaggerated dance moves were a dead giveaway.
“I’m not sure how I feel about you running off to some Podunk town a thousand miles away.”
“Lucky for me, I’m not asking for your permission,” Jess replied, never looking away from her passenger side view.
I swore sometimes she forgot who raised her. I gripped the steering wheel and swallowed my words before I said something I’d regret. Jessica didn’t like being reminded of our past. I didn’t blame her, I didn’t either.
“You can work anywhere. Why some small town on the other side of the country?”
“We aren’t all programmed for skyscrapers and five o’clock dinner reservations, Ben.”
Jess graduated in May. After seven years of hard work and sleepless nights, she did it. My little sister was a physical therapist. We’d both had our dreams. It made me happy to watch her finally achieve hers. Maybe she’d always planned on leaving Houston, but I never imagined her practicing physical therapy anywhere else. Why would she when we had some of the best medical facilities right outside our front door?
I passed another slowpoke. The more the memories threatened to surface, the heavier my foot weighed on the gas pedal. “Now you’re judging my lifestyle? Is that it?”
She turned to face me. Finally. “Aren’t you judging mine?”
“Not your lifestyle. Just the location you chose to live it.”
“I know how you feel about small towns.” She reached over and grabbed my hand. “But Clover Creek didn’t cause the accident.” My fist clenched the steering wheel. She kept talking. “I didn’t cause the accident.” My knuckles turned white, but she… kept… fucking talking. “You didn’t cause the accident.”
I clenched my teeth and passed three more cars. Jess squeezed my hand. Her touch was gentle. Her voice was so calm. How? How could she talk about it like that moment hadn’t changed our entire lives? Like we hadn’t been thrown under a microscope for a whole town to examine for two years? Everywhere we went, people had their own idea of how we should live, what we should feel, who we should be. Until I decided it was enough. Until I decided to leave.
I knew all too well how it worked in a small town. There was nowhere to run from your mistakes, no way to overcome them. Everyone wore a label on their back. And I’d been labeled as the boy who killed his parents.
I didn’t hear from Bennett Friday or Saturday or most of the day Sunday. He’d told me he was going out of town with his sister, so I wasn’t surprised when my phone didn’t ring. I missed hearing his voice, though. I missed the way he made me laugh… and the way his laughter made my belly flop. I missed the way he flirted with no shame… and how his words made my blood run hot.
The cool air kissed my hot skin as soon as I stepped out of the shower. Steam fogged up the bathroom mirror. I wrapped a towel around my body and made it to the kitchen just as the timer on the oven beeped. I scooped a single chicken breast from the pan and looked around. The TV was off, and the house was quiet. The open space from the kitchen into the living room seemed bigger than before. I tossed a bag of veggies in the microwave above the stove and poured myself a glass of wine.
Lonely, party of one, your table is ready.
Being alone never bothered me. I’d lived my life being totally okay with running a successful business, hanging out with Stella, and getting lost in the imaginary world of a good book. I’d never missed companionship because I’d never really had it. I dated, of course. But no one ever made it past the audition round. If I was honest, most of them were prime candidates for the blooper reel.
Until Bennett.
I hadn’t even met him, and I already missed him. I hadn’t even seen him, and I already knew he was gorgeous. There were hundreds of miles between us, and I felt closer to him than I’d ever felt to anyone other than my parents and Stella. We’d only been talking a little over a week, and it seemed as though I’d known him my whole life.
The scent of steamed broccoli and cheese reminded me I hadn
’t eaten since before noon. It was after six, and I was starving. My skin had cooled off from the hot shower, so I put on a tank top and pajama bottoms while I waited for the microwave to finish.
I’d just dumped the veggies on my plate when my phone rang. I glanced on the clock on the stove. Six-o-eight. It had to be him.
Please let it be him.
Bennett’s name popped up on my screen, and I could’ve done cartwheels across my living room—if I thought I wouldn’t break something… like a lamp… or my neck. I dropped the fork on my plate and scooped my phone off the counter.
“Hello.”
Bennett sighed into the phone. “Say it again,” he said.
“Hello?”
“Don’t stop talking. I don’t care what you say. I just want to hear your voice.”
Funny he should say that. I felt the exact same way about hearing his.
“So, you’re saying you missed me?”
“I’m saying if I had to go one more day without talking to you, I may have turned into a raging alcoholic.”
He was kidding, I was sure, but something about his words tore at my heartstrings. The sarcasm disappeared. There was no innocent innuendo. He sounded so serious, so desperate. What happened to you in Florida, Bennett Kane?
“You comfort me, Korie. I didn’t realize how much until I needed it and it wasn’t there,” he added when I didn’t know what to say.
“You comfort me too.” I meant it. I’d missed him. It felt good to hear he’d missed me too.
“Tell me something good. Anything. How was your weekend?”
Lonely. Boring. I spent the past two and a half days thinking about you.
“Busy.” Lies. I took a sip of my wine and leaned against the counter. I don’t know why I said the words that came next. I’m not bold. I’m not outspoken… sexually speaking. I’m not Stella. But they felt right. This felt right. “You haven’t even touched me yet, and I’m already addicted to you.”
“Jesus, Korie.” He sounded like I’d punched him in the gut, and he was gasping for air. “Tell me more.”
“Sometimes I wonder what you look like. I wonder about your smile. About your touch.” The living room didn’t seem so empty anymore. The space didn’t feel so big when I walked through to sit on the sofa. Because if I was going through with this, there was no way I could do it standing up.
“What about my touch?”
My heart sped up. My pulse pounded in my ears. “How it would feel…”
“I need to see you.” There was purpose in his voice. It wasn’t a question. It was a need—a need I knew all too well because I burned for him, fire seeping from every pore.
“Now?”
“Yes. Not in person, of course. Although that will happen. And soon. But I thought we could video chat. FaceTime or something.”
I stopped breathing. My mouth went dry. No way. My hair was tied up in a towel for crying out loud. I had no makeup on. One look at me, and he’d run for the hills. Fake a bad connection. Disconnect his phone and change his name. Okay, that was a little extreme. But there was no way I was letting Bennett see Pajama Korie. At least he’d seen pictures of me. I’ve never even seen him. He’s always been this enigma, a mystery guy—like Batman. My chest heaved as my breath came faster. I was going to look at him. What if he was nothing like I’d expected? Or worse—what if he was everything I’d hoped for?
“Korie?”
Right. He was still on the phone. Waiting for an answer while I had a mini panic attack.
“It’s been a long weekend, and if you mean any of those fucking words you just said—”
He sounded so desperate. How could I tell him no?
I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing. “Okay,” I interrupted him.
“Yeah?” He sounded surprised.
I smiled to myself. “Yeah.”
Then I ended the call and waited for my phone to ring again.
This was it. He was calling. I accepted the call then immediately dropped my phone the second my image showed up in the corner of the screen.
No. No, no, no. I completely forgot about the towel on my head.
“Are you okay?” Bennett’s voice trailed from the floor where my phone landed.
I pulled the towel from my head and ran it over my hair. Then I flipped my head upside down and raked my fingers through the damp strands. This was so not how I’d pictured this going. I licked my lips and pressed them together, hoping to plump them a little. Then flipped my head back and grabbed the phone from the floor.
“Hey. Yeah. Sorry. Sometimes I’m clumsy.”
Sometimes I’m clumsy? That was so hot. What guy wouldn’t want a piece of that?
The minute I zoned in on the face on my screen, I forgot everything. I forgot about my hair, about my word vomit, about the food sitting on my kitchen counter. All I saw was him. I was wrong. Every time I’d imagined his face, I’d been so, so wrong. Bennett Kane was not handsome. He wasn’t hot. He was… remarkable. From his messy brown hair to his camera-ready smile, he was perfection.
“Hey,” he said, every bit as breathless as I was, although I wasn’t sure why. I was abstract art. He was David.
“Hey,” I replied.
He leaned back against the cushion of a light gray sofa. “I think I just found my new addiction.”
I sat up straight and pulled my hair to one side. “Oh yeah? What was your old addiction?”
“Talking to you.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks, and I hoped he didn’t notice. “And the new one?”
His smile faded, and his eyes grew dark. I couldn’t look away from him if my house had started burning down around me. “Looking at you.”
I was pretty sure I’d just found my new addiction too.
She was everything.
She could stop traffic in her black dress and don’t even get me started on the red lipstick, but when she answered the FaceTime call in her pajamas with no makeup on, I lost my shit. Her tiny tank top was useless against hiding her perfect fucking breasts with the perfect fucking nipples. Every time her chest heaved with the breaths she took, I licked my lips at the thought of pulling the hard little peaks between my teeth.
She wondered about my touch? Good. Because I wondered about touching her.
“If I were there with you. Right now. Where would you want me to touch you?”
Fuck innuendo. It was time to get straight to the point.
Her cheeks flushed the most beautiful shade of pink I’d ever seen. She wiggled her ass on the couch, trying to soothe the ache between her thighs, I assumed. She swallowed hard. Her lips parted to speak then snapped shut. Then opened again. And shut.
I settled into the couch cushion and smirked. “You don’t have to answer. You want to know why?”
“Why?” Her voice cracked on the word, so she cleared her throat.
Good God, I was going to destroy this woman.
“Because I’d touch you everywhere. I’d start on my knees. I’d massage your pretty little feet. Work my way up to your calves. Kiss that spot behind your knee while my hand slid up your thigh. By then you’d have your fingers in my hair and you wouldn’t be able to sit still. My hands would inch higher, and you’d go a little crazier. You’d be so fucking wet I could smell it. Then I’d move past your hips to your belly button. My nose would graze the slit between your thighs because there’s no fucking way I could be that close to it without savoring that sweet scent. And my tongue… Jesus Christ, the things I’d do with my tongue…”
“Oh my God, Bennett.”
She took in short, quick breaths. Her eyes glazed over and her lips parted—those sexy as sin lips that I couldn’t wait to have wrapped around my cock. God, I was hard as fuck. I was so hard it hurt, fucking physically ached, not to be inside of her right now.
“Prop your phone up and lay back. Let me see you.”
She obeyed.
I drank her in, her hair splayed around her, eyes dark with want, lips parted, and bod
y craving. “Tell me what you want. I need to hear it,” I said and prayed to God she would say the words.
My prayer was answered when she opened her mouth and said the sweetest fucking words I’d ever heard. “I need you, Bennett. And if I can’t have you in person, then please… fuck me with your voice.”
That was it. The last thread of my resistance snapped. I would beg, borrow, and steal to make this woman mine.
“Touch yourself.”
She started sliding her pajama bottoms off her hips.
I stopped her. “No. Don’t. Not yet. Slide your hand inside your panties. I’m going to close my eyes, and you’re going to do the same. I just want to hear you. And if you give me even a glimpse of what I know is the most perfect pussy I’ve ever seen, I’ll be on the first flight to Georgia, and I have an important meeting tomorrow.”
She licked her lips. “Okay.”
I knew what I’d just told her, but I couldn’t look away. She was so innocent. It was obvious she’d never done anything like this before. Hell, neither had I. But I knew enough about a woman’s body to know she needed to come, and I’ll be damned if anyone was going to make that happen but me.
“Korie.”
“Yeah?”
“Are you wet?”
“Yes.”
Fuck. God. Fuck.
I swallowed. Hard. “Show me.”
She slipped her hand inside her pants and I watched—no, I devoured the very sight of—her fingers move beneath the fabric. Her back arched and her head leaned into the cushion behind her. Her hand moved faster, then her knees fell open wide. Her nipples poked through the thin tank top. Then it happened. She moaned. And I almost came in my pants like a fourteen-year-old boy.
As if she knew I couldn’t take much more, she pulled her hand from beneath her waistband and held her slick wet fingers in front of the phone.
“Fuck yeah. Do it again. Touch it again. Go deeper this time.”
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