“Do I even want to know?” Jase kiddingly asked.
“It’s more than I need to live on and more than enough so I don’t actually have to work,” she said.
“What did your grandfather do? Win the lottery?”
“He was a cryptographer and statistician during World War II, then designed cryptography programs for the CIA after he got out of the Army. After he retired from the CIA, he sold a bunch of programs to big-name tech companies.”
She smiled. “When I say he was smart, I mean genius-level IQ smart. He’d analyze data for hours, just for fun. Right before the stock market crashed in ’08, he pulled out all his money. People told him he was crazy, but he just said ‘watch and see.’ He reinvested everything right after the crash and a couple years later had tripled his investment. Raised all sorts of flags with the SEC, but he kept all his data, all his charts and graphs. They offered him a job,” she said with a small laugh. “By that time he had already been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He set the trust up right after he found out.”
“You miss him.”
“Yeah.”
Jase squeezed her again. “What happens if you don’t get married?” he asked.
“Well, my grandfather was not as old-fashioned as my grandmother. I can leave it to any children I may have down the road, or it can go into the endowment fund I asked him to set up with most of the money.”
“Five million wasn’t most of the money?” Jase asked.
“No, it was about a fifth of it.”
“Holy cow. And you don’t get any of that until you get hitched?”
“Nope.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“Sure, why not?” She shrugged. “I really don’t have to work if I don’t want to. The interest is more than enough to live on, especially here in North Carolina.”
“How old are you?” Jase asked.
“You know it’s rude to ask a lady her age,” Bree said, looking back up at him.
He just gave her another squeeze.
“Thirty-two. What about you? Are you really old? Is your beard covering up all the wrinkles on your face?”
“Thirty-four, smart ass.”
Bree grinned up at him before tucking her head back onto his chest.
“Was last week a rebound?” he asked.
“No.” She felt Jase release a breath as if he had been holding it, waiting for her answer. “I had no intention of hooking up with anyone on Friday. I just didn’t want to sit around my house drinking and whining about what an asshat Chad was. I can’t even remember the last time I had a one-night stand.”
“Then why’d you leave? You didn’t even give it a chance.”
“You don’t exactly seem like the kind of guy who’s lacking for female companionship. I didn’t want it to be awkward with you pretending like you’d call and me pretending like I believed you were going to. It was just easier to leave and not deal with the whole thing.”
“I haven’t been a monk.” He wrapped his other arm around her, shifting them so they were face to face. “But I haven’t taken a girl home with me in longer than I can remember. I woke up with your perfume in my nose and the taste of you in my mouth,” he said as he ran his nose up the side of Bree’s neck. “I was pissed when I woke up and you were gone.”
He moved a hand under the hem of her shirt. The warm night air caressed her stomach as he exposed her skin on his slow path up to her breasts.
Bree’s breath caught in her throat. His words, combined with his touch, fueled the slow burn of her desire.
“I want another taste, Bree.” Jase’s tongue traced her bottom lip before taking advantage of Bree’s gasp, diving in and tangling his tongue with hers. His hand traveled back down her side, over her hip, and grabbed her thigh. He pulled her leg over his waist, nestling his rigid length against her core. With no one to interrupt them, their hands roamed freely, lifting shirts, unbuttoning buttons, and skimming goose-pimpled flesh.
Jase tried to roll Bree under him, forgetting they were in a hammock, and nearly toppled them out of it. He put an arm out to break their fall, but his momentum propelled him out of the hammock and onto the wooden deck of the porch.
