4
LINCOLN
Jules shucks her key out of the deadbolt and steps through the darkened doorway. I bump right into her from behind when she abruptly bends over to loosen the laces of her boots.
We both go stumbling forward, legs tangling. She squeals and her arms flail to find purchase.
“Ope! Shit. Sorry.” Thankfully, I manage to grab her hips before she flies headfirst through the drywall.
Christ. I’m overeager and it’s showing. In my defense, it’s been a decade since I’ve been with a new woman, and I’mstarvingto sink balls-deep into this one.
I want her. I want her so bad.
But admitting that out loud would only expose me as the animal I am. So I keep my mouth shut.
Jules takes my awkwardness in stride, straightening up and spinning around in my arms. She brushes her sweet, snarky mouth over mine. “No worries, Casanova. You’re about to make it up to me. Big time.”
Groaning at the softness of her lips, I lean into the kiss, ready to take things further. The air around us instantly burnsa hundred degrees hotter and a bead of sweat glides down my spine.
I stumble forward again, chasing Jules’s lips when she suddenly pulls away and flicks on a light switch. Stark white light fills the shoebox-sized entranceway. I see a few coats hung from a hook in the corner. A full-length mirror mounted on a wall. A photograph of Jules’s eclectic friend group, my mother’s pretty face grinning at me from the wooden picture frame.
I look away.
I love my mom. But with the things I’m planning to do to Jules tonight, the woman who gave birth to me is the last person I want to be thinking about right now.
I watch Jules take two footsteps, then she’s in the kitchen, tossing her keychain and leather jacket on the outdated dinner table. Two more footsteps and she’s filling an extra-tall plastic cup at the sink.
The space is small, with a rusty white refrigerator, an equally rusty white stove, and a two-in-one washer-dryer combo tucked underneath a peeling countertop. The place is kind of cozy, but I’m convinced that this has got to be the tiniest single dwelling house in all of Fairy Bush.
“Water?” Jules asks, lifting a chipped coffee mug in my direction.
I refuse the offer with a shake of my head. “I’m good, thanks.”
She shrugs. “Your call. I don’t know about you, but suddenly, I’mparched.”
Cup gripped in both hands, Jules downs a few long glugs of water, watching intently as I step out of my shoes and shrug out of my coat, hanging it on the hook near the door.
I see the appreciative way her eyes coast over my shoulders and across the expanse of my chest.
“Holybiceps…” she mutters into her cup.
I light up from the inside. The way she looks at me makes me feel unreasonably good about myself. She sets her cup on the counter and bites down on the corner of her lip. For a moment, we just stand there, checking each other out.
Damn—she’s hot.
Fingers clenching the countertop beside her, chin tilted downward, she watches me from under her eyelashes, not making a move toward me.
A realization dawns on me—she’s nervous.
The bold, mouthy, sass-machine Jules is nervous.
Because of me.
I like the ego boost that gives me. A little too much.
I take two footsteps into the kitchen. Two more steps over to where she’s leaned against the sink. Then, I’m looming over her, taking advantage of the four or five inches in height I have on her.
She lifts her head slightly, pupils dilated inside those mystical brown pools. Typically, this woman has sharp fangs and a big bark. But now that we’re alone at her place, she’s all shy smile and puppy dog eyes.
