Pilots were the cockiest species of man that existed.
And he was a flirt.
Oh, yeah, he’d wanted to have a little fun. He’d mentioned he was bored, hadn’t he? Nothing like stirring up the old girl next door.
Penny stripped off her clothes and climbed into the shower.
She rubbed the soap over her neck and arms and let the hot water cascade over her.
Closing her eyes, she couldn’t help recalling the moment they entered the store. It had felt so very, very good when he’d put his hand on her back. When his fingers caressed her stomach… He’d done it so tenderly…
She hadn’t imagined the heat coming from him, his strength and what had felt like protection. He’d stirred more than sexual arousal in her. He’d awakened her need for human contact, damn him.
Inexplicably, she choked on a sob.
Being touched, barely touched like that, ought not to have affected her like this.
Crumpling under the weight of unwanted emotion, she slid down the tile and then huddled on the floor.
Water pelted her from above.
Another sob, another.
And suddenly she let out a wail.
She’d put all of that behind her. Feeling like a woman, feeling just a little bit beautiful, worthwhile… like she mattered.
It shouldn’t hurt like this.
Feeling again.
But she was. Both hurting and feeling. She let the water roll over her. She’d not cried in a lifetime. She’d been pretending everything was okay, living the only way she could.
Weeping pitiably, she didn’t stand back up until the water turned cold.
“Fuck!” She fell forward and crawled out from under the spray. “Fuckity frick flipping frack!”
Nothing like a cold shower to bring her to the end of her bout of self-pity.
She shampooed, rinsed, scrubbed, and climbed out as quickly as possible. By the time she wrapped herself in her big towel, she was shivering.
She was okay though.
Now that that was over.
As she padded, barefoot, across the old wooden floors toward her bedroom, she bit her lip and then changed her route to head for the office. Shadows filled the room, light from outside barely filtering in through the curtains and the blinds. She didn’t flip the light switch on.
Was he in there now? She adjusted her towel.
Probably sleeping. He’d probably come home, taken a pain pill, and passed out on the bed.
She peeled back the curtain just a few inches and peered through the bent slats of her blinds.
Not sleeping.
He was sitting on the bed, kind of sideways, but away from her, wearing…
Nothing!
