Good With His Hands

by Lauren Blakely

  I sign off and end the call, tossing my cell back in the bag before gathering Ruby closer, sliding a hand under her cover-up as she leans into me. I crave her closeness. “There. All settled.”

  “You can’t pack for me,” she says, humming beneath her breath. I cup her breast through her sexy-as-sin suit. “And you can’t do that in public.”

  “It’s dark enough. No one will see,” I murmur, all caught up in her. “And I’m an excellent packer. We’ll sleep at your place tonight. I’ll pack you in the morning while you work, then head home and grab my things, and be back at your place with pre-adventure pizza for a late dinner.”

  And holy shit . . . I just went full couple planning with her.

  I ought to be terrified, because I don’t do that.

  I don’t want to be tied down. Haven’t wanted that in ages.

  But I don’t mind it at all with Ruby.

  With my daring, courageous friend, who is so much more than a friend.

  Full couple seems to be all I want right now.

  Riddle me that.

  But then, it’s not all that complicated.

  I’ve always loved Ruby. I should have known it wouldn’t be that hard to fall in love with her. If I could rewind the past few days and undo this tumble into something more . . . maybe I would.

  But I can’t. And right now, I just want more of her. As much as I can get.

  I tip my forehead in the direction of her place. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “You’re a mind reader.” She grins. “That may be one of my favorite things about you.”

  I almost tell her I have too many favorite parts of her to list, but that kind of cheesy shit is a good way to make it even harder to say goodbye than it’s going to be already.

  At her place we make quick work of our clothes.

  Cover-ups and shirts pool on the floor, and she grabs her phone, clicks on a playlist, then scoots back on the bed, her eyes wide, eager.

  Soft, sexy music floats through her room.

  Like I need mood music, but hey, I won’t complain about Sam Smith.

  I climb over her, sliding my hand along her soft skin, dipping my face to her neck. A sigh falls from my lips as I kiss her, tasting the ocean and the sand and her.

  My head spins with longing, and my body throbs with desire.

  Her hands roam down my chest, over my abs, and straight to my dick.

  When she grips me, the noise I make is carnal.

  And needy too.

  So is hers. A plea. “Jesse.”

  It’s just my name. But the way she says it, all soft and desperate, like this day did something to her too, makes my heart thump harder.

  Fuck, I need this woman.

  Need so much more than this narrow window, this list.

  But I try to shake those thoughts from my head and zero in on the moment.

  Nighttime. Music. The way she moves beneath me.

  That is all there is. The physical. The now.

  She lifts her hips and I give Ruby what she wants, sliding a hand between her legs, losing my mind when I feel how wet she is.

  How ready she is.

  And she feels fucking incredible, all slick and soft.

  I bury my face in her neck, kissing and sucking as I stroke and glide, and soon she is bucking and writhing in my hand.

  Then, coming hard and fast, in mere minutes.

  I want to thump my chest, pat myself on the back. But more than that, I want to give her another orgasm.

  “Need you now,” I groan.

  “Have me,” she says in an echo, grabbing a condom from the nightstand and thrusting it at me.

  I cover myself as she parts her legs.

  And I nearly die of desire.

  The way she opens herself. How much she wants me. How she gives me her body.

  It’s all too much and never enough at once.

  I wedge myself between the paradise of her thighs, rub the head of my cock against that wetness, then slide inside her.

  She gasps gorgeously, arching her back at the same time.

  And that, right there.

  I want to capture that. Remember that.

  The way she wants me.

  And the way I want her.

  I sink all the way in, filling her, my chest against hers, my arms wrapped around her shoulders.

  I can’t get close enough to this gorgeous woman.

  “Yes,” she moans.

  I move in her, heeding her call, giving her what we both want—connection, closeness, contact.

  I run my hands up and down her back, and she sighs and moans with every touch. She loves to be touched. She responds to each sweep of my fingers, each press of my palms.

  As she wraps her legs around me, hooking her ankles over my ass, I let myself forget that we’re not a couple.

  This will all end very soon.

  But right now, it feels like we won’t ever stop.

  Later, when she’s sound asleep in my arms, I play out scenarios in my mind. I imagine possibilities.

  Maybe I’m stupid for not seeing this coming. I should have considered this kind of trouble before we started working our way through the list. But jumping through all those hoops with her, watching her take chances, push herself, surprise herself . . .

  It’s like reading a great book for the first time.

  Or the fifth.

  You don’t want to put it down. You just want to keep turning the pages, to discover its secrets, to see if it’s still as good as you remember—and it always is.

  Ruby is the book I want to keep reading, the person I want to know, inside and out.

  I park my hands behind my head, stare at the ceiling in the dark, questions flickering before my eyes.

  But they all start and end with bridges I don’t know how to cross. I have a plan, a path, and I’m too far down that road to turn back now.

  I’ve resigned myself to the list. Just the list.

  And then I’ll let her go.

  19

  Ruby

  Must draw cartoon pies and adorable animals eating said pies.

  Must not draw Jesse’s face or Jesse’s hands.

  But those hands . . .

  My God, he sets my skin on fire with those hands.

  I think I’m in love with them.

  For a few minutes, I give in, sketching his fingers, recalling their shape, their length, their feel.

  The way he skims them over me.

  How my skin sizzles and my heart trembles.

  I draw and I draw and I draw.

  I sit back in my chair, brush the loose strands of hair from my face, and study the sketch.

  A man holding an orange and the words squeeze the day.

  I smile. It’s 100 percent not workable for the menus at Sweetie Pies, but maybe I needed to get it out of my system.

  And maybe I need to get this one out too.

  I draw a quick sketch of a cartoon figure woman tossing a heart at a man and saying take it.

  Yes, Jesse. You make me want to squeeze all the days, throw my heart at you, draw you all day long.

  You’re a muse.

  And that’s not what I need since you’re leaving.

  And I have menus—freaking menus—to illustrate.

  Sweetie Pies relies on me for my drawings, and I can’t let my parents down.

  Must focus.

  Focus.

  I give myself a continuous mental pep talk, but it still takes me nearly two hours to finish the new illustrations for the fall menus and send them to the printer. I’m too distracted. Not only by Jesse’s many sketchable parts, but by the man himself, tromping around in my bedroom, pawing through my drawers, packing God only knows what for our trip.

  I made sure to remove every pair of granny panties from my lingerie drawer before he started this morning—he doesn’t need to see those or imagine what I look like in them—but there are other embarrassing things in there.

  My collection of unicorn shirts, for e
xample.

  Growing up, I dearly loved unicorns, and I still do, but at some point, unicorns tees became a Thing People Give Me, and now I have literally two dozen shirts showcasing magical one-horned horses, all of them silly, but some more ridiculous than others.

  “Why have I never seen you in this?” Jesse asks as I’m uploading the new card designs to my Etsy shop.

  I turn to see him in the door to my bedroom, holding up a blue T-shirt with a pair of unicorns doing the nasty on the front. “Um, because it’s obscene?”

  “It’s unicorn sex,” he says with a snort. “It’s amazing. And magical.”

  I arch a brow. “Tell that to my mother. Gigi has one too. She wore it to work under her apron once. Mom almost had a stroke.”

  “Your mom could stand to loosen up a little,” he says, folding the tee. “And this is definitely coming with us. I want to try this position with you. In the woods. While you’re wearing nothing but rainbow glitter.”

  I laugh and blush. Images flash in my mind. Him. Me. Sex in the great outdoors.

  And my nipples are hard. Again. “Stop. I’m having enough trouble concentrating as it is.”

  “I told you we should have stayed in bed longer this morning.” He leans against the doorframe, his gaze raking up and down my body, making me wish I’d put on something more than a T-shirt to work in. “I don’t see how you can be expected to concentrate with only two orgasms. You need at least three.”

  I shake my head and point a warning finger at his chest. “Stop. If I don’t finish this, I’m not leaving tomorrow. I’m serious.”

  “So am I.” He tosses the T-shirt on the couch as he stalks across my small living room toward me. “Panties off. You need to come on my tongue. Coming on my tongue will make everything better.”

  “Hard to argue with that,” I say, sighing in surrender as he sweeps me out of my chair and carries me to the couch where he proves he’s a brilliant man with an even more brilliant tongue.

  I come so hard I’m still seeing rainbow glitter dancing around the edges of my vision as Jesse says, “Now you’re ready to work. See you at seven,” and leaves to attend to his own packing.

  As soon as he’s gone, my focus magically returns. I make a mental note to tell him he was so right about that third orgasm, then I finish uploading all my new cards to my shop and placing my bulk orders in an hour and a half.

  Next, I catch up on my PT exercises. Yes, I swam like an animal yesterday, but my physical therapist gave me plenty of exercises to continue with on my own to stay strong, and that’s what I need to do.

  Stay strong.

  For more reasons than one.

  The man who’s making me feel all kinds of scary things is leaving in less than two weeks.

  I’ll need unicorn-level badassery to vanquish these feelings.

  I lace up my shoes and head out for a run. While I’m at the park, I add squats, lunges, and standing core exercises to my workout before I finish up and head for home.

  On the way, I text Gigi with the swimming update—promising to wash and return her adorable suit ASAP—and check in with my mom on her new pie.

  * * *

  Mom: It’s delish! Come by and try some? Dad and I are having a few friends over tomorrow afternoon to play cards and taste test. You’re welcome to join. Oh! And we can show them the new menu drawings. The printer just sent me a proof. They’re adorable!

  * * *

  Ruby: Aw, thanks, so glad you love them. But I’m actually going out of town for a few days. With Jesse. Upstate.

  * * *

  Mom: Jesse, as in, THE Jesse?

  * * *

  I gulp. But answer her anyway.

  * * *

  Ruby: Yes. We’re hanging out before he leaves town. That’s all.

  * * *

  Mom: Are you sure, hon? You’ve always had a little crush on him, haven’t you?

  * * *

  As I turn the corner, I stare at her message like it’s an infrared laser that can see right through me. I could deny it. I could avoid her. But she knows me. Why lie?

  * * *

  Ruby: Yes, but it’s all good, Mom. We’re friends. We’ve been through a lot together.

  * * *

  Mom: Of course you have. So be careful. This is a tender time for you, honey, just finishing therapy and all. Be careful with yourself.

  * * *

  Twice.

  She said be careful twice.

  But I am careful.

  Friends with benefits is a smart strategy. It protects the heart. We’ve laid out the rules. And we won’t break them.

  * * *

  Ruby: I will be. Love you.

  Later that night, Jesse and I eat pizza and play our own version of Pictionary, challenging each other to see who can draw a pig faster, a llama funnier, an anteater faster and funnier.

  By the time I finish my Chardonnay and another slice of cheese and pepper yumminess, claiming sketching victory with a spectacular giraffe with a neck long enough to fill an eighteen-by-twenty-four-inch page of sketch paper, I’m too happy to think about how not carefully I behaved tonight.

  Tonight, it felt like we were together.

  The kind of together that doesn’t have an expiration date.

  The kind we can’t have.

  20

  Jesse

  This is the good life.

  Blasting the Rumours album by Fleetwood Mac . . . Cruising in the 1972 Datsun Z-series I couldn’t bring myself to part with before selling the shop down a two-lane highway . . . Road-tripping with my woman.

  If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up.

  Right here, right now, I have all I want.

  If I had to be stuck in a Groundhog Day-type scenario, I’d pick this one. I’d live this twenty-four-hours over and over, because I know—I fucking know—the day’s only going to get better.

  On the way out of the city, we made a quick pit stop at the bulk store, a not-so-quick detour at a roadside diner, and now we’re almost there, winding under a canopy of tall trees, traveling past lush summer hills.

  The smoothly robotic voice of the GPS bleats out, “In five miles, Camp Knick Knack Paddywhack is on your right.”

  “Five miles till Ruby smothers me in kisses for taking her to camp.”

  The brunette beauty in the passenger seat shoots me a naughty look. “Yes, and then I’ll have to write a letter home too, keeping my folks abreast of all my fabulous summer camp experiences.”

  I grin. “Give me a preview of what you’ll say.”

  She mimes putting a pen to paper. “Dear Mom and Dad. Today I won the canoe race, made a lovely rope bracelet, and banged Jesse senseless in a bunk bed.”

  Laughing, I stretch my arm across her seat, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “Presumptuous, but I like it.”

  I return my hands to the steering wheel.

  A sign beckons at the bend in the road—green, faded, and held up by wooden posts staked into the ground. A beacon for kids for decades.

  Camp Knick Knack Paddywhack.

  “There it is!” Ruby squeals, clapping. She leans across the console, drops a quick kiss to my cheek. “Thank you, partner in crime. This is so cool. Completely a dream come true.”

  My instinct is to make light of our road trip, like this is nothing. But this isn’t nothing for her. “Honored to help you achieve it.”

  Her phone pings. She grabs it from her purse and swipes her thumb across the screen. “It’s my mom. Group text to Gigi and me. She wants to know when the printer will be finished with the menus.” She taps her chin, muttering, “They sent her the proof. I wonder why they didn’t send her the pickup information?” Her phone pings again.

  She jumps in the seat, then smiles. “Oh, good! It’s Gigi being a goddess.”

  “What did Goddess Gigi do?”

  “Jumped in all hold my beer, I’ve got this. She’s already picked up the menus and is on her way to Sweetie Pies to laminate them while she reconciles the bookk
eeping issue from first quarter that’s been giving me fits.”

  “Definitely goddess behavior.”

  “From henceforth, she shall be called Gigi the Goddess Superhero. In fact, let me text them back about that . . .”

  She types as she reads out loud. “Once again, Gigi proves she is a goddess superhero, and that there is nothing she can’t handle.”

  “Telling it like it is,” I say as we wind around another curve.

  She hums beneath her breath. “Mom says, She is indeed. Together, you two are unstoppable. Sweetie Pies is in good hands with the next generation!”

  Ruby winces like something from her mom’s text bothers her, but then she tucks her phone away.

  “You okay?”

  “Amazing.” She beams my way, but she’s not fooling anyone, let alone me.

  I arch a brow and she sighs. “I don’t know . . .. Sometimes I feel bad that I don’t love the pie shop as much as my mom and dad. Or Gigi, for that matter. But that’s okay.” She shrugs. “I’m useful there, and I love helping my family. And I always find time to do my cards and other arty stuff on the side.”

  I frown, skeptical. “Is that what you want?”

  Ruby twirls a strand of hair around her finger, huffs softly. “I guess. Probably. Who’s to say?”

  “Ruby, you’re to say.”

  She deals me an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I’m trying to figure it—” She breaks off, holding up a hand with her fingers spread. “Wait. Fuck ‘sorry.’ From now on, every time I want to say sorry when I don’t have to, I’m going to say ‘unicorn sex’ instead.”

  I laugh. “That’s a good way to kick the habit. And let me know when you’re ready for another rainbow glitter orgasm while you’re at it.”