“I am a bit of a control freak.” The smile was back in her voice, and he could see her crystal blue eyes twinkling. “Seriously, though, thank you for today. It meant a lot.”
Toeing off his shoes, he unbuckled his belt and unclasped his pants. “You’re welcome.”
The zipper hissed its way down, and he wondered if she heard it and was imagining him undressing. He stripped off his pants and boxer briefs and sat on the edge of the bed. Thehard-on he’d been sporting since he got her text sprang into his waiting hand. “I have to admit, it was kind of fun, watching you work the problems I threw at you.”
“See, dick.”
Yeah, I see it, all right.
Avery wrapped his fingers around said dick and rode the length from base to tip and back again. He pictured a smudge of flour on her cheek. Could almost smell the batter in her hair and taste the sugar on her lips. “Are you still baking?”
“No…I’m in bed.”
Growling, he yanked back the covers and stretched across the cold, crisp sheets, legs spread. His free hand cupped his balls. This was what he needed.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said.
“About me?” he asked, just to hear her laugh.
Instead, she whispered, “Yeah.”
Anticipation whizzed through him. This was the opening he’d been waiting for. “About what ‘we’ll see’ means?”
“Yeah.”
“And did you figure it out?”
“Yeah.”
Anticipation hummed along his spine, amping up his heartbeat and hanging onto the edge of her next answer. “Tell me what you want, Jo.”
“More bases,” she breathed, that low and seductive rasp reaching through the phone to wrap around his dick, milking a drop of pre-cum from the tip on his next stroke up.
His fist tightened at the base. “Fuck me.”
“Slow down. We’ll start with second base.”
He grunted. “How long am I gonna be stuck there? And what about your rules?”
“That depends on how good you really are. I mean, you talk a good game, but…”
“Oh, I got game. And I seem to recall scoring a whimper and a moan today, so keep talking.”
“As for my rules,” she said as if she wasn’t blushing from head to toe, “I’m sure I can come up with a work around.”
“Who are you, and what have you done with my Jo?” Another moment of awkward silence dragged by before he realized his fuckup. Pretending not to notice, he growled, “Hel-lo?”
“Um, the way I figure it, why not? In four weeks, we’ll walk away without looking back, so rule number three is still at the top of the list.”
“If it’s at the top, it would be rule number one.” Avery released his dick and folded his arms behind his head. The conversation sounded familiar, and if it was like the last one, it would take a while. “Which one is rule number three?”
She did that clicking thing with her tongue, and he’d bet his Vanquish an eyeroll came with it. “No booty calls. No showing up at my apartment. I won’t show up at yours. Our personal lives will remain separate. No calls, texts, or emails unless it’s to cancel or schedule a new event, like you did last Tuesday night. I believe you spelled it out well that first day. ‘No strings. No expectations.’ So we’ll only be doing bases—”
“Running bases or advancing bases, though technically, I’ll bedoingyou.”
“Whatever, though technically or hypothetically, there won’t be any ‘doing’ if you’re going to be crude about it.”
“There’s my Jo.”
