Two seconds later, I get a row of thumbs-up and celebration emojis.
Jessa: Send me a picture… And be safe.
The little text bubble appears and then a second text.
Jessa:I’ll call the cops if you don’t text me in two hours. Where are you again?
I message her back, remind her Star Falls, Ohio, and promise to check in. Then I thank my lucky stars that she’s on bed rest and staring at her phone with very little to do.
You’d think with a one-year rule, I wouldn’t have a lot of friends, but the opposite is true. I’ve found that the ones who really matter stick around in my life, no matter where the road takes me. New York, Nashville, Austin, Omaha, Monterey… I’ve lived everywhere and belong no place. But I have so much love in my life from dozens of friends I’ve met along the way.
Star Falls may be three time zones away from Jessa, but if she didn’t answer, I have two dozen other close girlfriends who’d have my back. Maybe not as immediately as Jess does, but she is sitting three times zones away, cooking a baby who might decide to come months too early if Jessa so much as lifts a finger.
I text back, imagining the stack of paperbacks and adult coloring books I shipped her last week sitting on her bedside table, then turn my attention back to the hometown hottie.
Me:Love you. Feet up and tits out. Cook that baby until well done.
Ben dims the lights in the restaurant and nods at my phone. “You need a ride? Might be tough to get a rideshare at this hour, especially in this weather.” His smile is sincere, almost apologetic. “Small-town living.”
My car should be arriving along with the rest of my furniture on the truck that’s bringing it sometime this week. After I spent nine months in Monterey, a few months shy of the one-year rule, my company decided it would be cheaper to put my car on a flatbed than to have me drive it from California to Ohio in late October. Weather delays and storms like this could have set me back. Time that I would have been stuck in hotels instead of working on-site here in Star Falls.
I reach for the rain jacket that I hung on the purse hook under the bar. “I walked, actually,” I tell him. “I’d better bundleup.” I set a few dollars on the bar top. “Will you make sure the bartender gets this?” I ask him. “For the coffee.”
He nods, looking from me to the dollars and back again.
“You know…” He tugs his rain jacket over his arms and shivers slightly. He must be cold and damp, and I can’t help thinking I’d like to warm him up in my walk-in shower. “We don’t know each other, but I’ve got a mother and a sister who would sauté my balls for breakfast if I ever let a woman put herself in harm’s way. I’d be happy to drive you so you don’t have to walk.”
I hop down off my barstool, and he comes to stand beside me. Our height difference is almost comical, and he must see that. He chuckles and shakes his head.
“Scratch that. You wouldn’t be walking. That wind would scoop you right up and blow you all the way to your hotel.”
I press my lips together and consider his offer. “You delivered dinners tonight? Out in this weather?”
He nods, studying my face. “I did.”
“And did the meals all make it safely?”
He looks at me again, a thick, dark brow lifted slightly in question. “I’m extremely good at what I do,” he assures me, a confident grin on his face. “Pizzas and pastas all made it to their destinations, toppings intact.”
I nod. “If you can be trusted with ravioli, I think you can be trusted with me.” But I hold up my phone. “I do have location tracking on my phone and a load of friends who will be expecting to hear from me. So, no serial-killer shit. We clear?”
“No serial-killer shit,” he promises, his grin wider now. Then I feel his hand on my lower back. “Youreallyliked that ravioli.” He says it almost as an afterthought, but I stop in my tracks, my boots silent on the carpeted flooring.
“I never joke about food. I live for it,” I tell him.
His smile grows even bigger, the heat of his palm spreading a ripple of warmth through my raincoat. “Then you are most definitely in the right hands.”
Holy shit.
Talk about the right hands.
Ben’s wet clothes are piled in the corner of my bathroom, the steam from the water fogging the mirror. While he warms up in the shower, I’m in front of the vanity, digging through my overnight bag for a condom. After the things this man did to me with his fingers… I want more. So much more.
Hence the need to strip down, warm up, and move from the lumpy sofa in my hotel room to a more comfortable spot.
I wrap a towel around myself and check the time. It’s only been an hour since Ben brought me to my room, helped me finish off that half-bottle of not-stale-after-all Chianti, and we made out like teenagers on a very sad-looking sofa. I have at least another hour before I need to check in with Jessa, and I plan to spend every minute of it wisely.
I grab a foil packet from my toiletry bag and then hang my towel neatly on the hook. Ben is under the hot water, his eyes closed and his dick just beginning to go soft.
