Just how much of her inspiration was real life versus imagination I wasn’t sure, but watching her bouncing around to her HIIT workout fuelled my fantasies. I was just glad Nate wasn’t there to see me studying his sister.
She didn’t notice me until her workout stopped and she turned around to pick up her water bottle.
“Fuck! Jesse! Give a girl warning.” She glared at me, but there was no malice to it. “You could’ve joined me.”
I shook my head. “Too energetic for me. I’ll stick to weights with Nicky this afternoon.” I’d promised him I’d spot him with some heavier lifts, and the kid was bored, hanging around when everyone else had gone off on holiday. He was finishing his degree and hanging round Kitty’s Café pretty much all the time, although he denied he had a crush on the owner.
She gave me a sly grin. “So you just thought you’d watch instead?”
“Yeah. Pretty nice view. Nate’s got some nice trees growing in this part of the garden, and that hydrangea’s just blooming this year.” I leaned my elbows on my knees, watching her get just a little flustered.
“You’re terrible.”
“I’ve been called worse. You still want to be my driver if I’mterrible?” I managed to keep my eyes on her face rather than her tits, tits that were impossible to miss given she was still catching her breath from her workout.
“I quite like the idea of being the boss of how you get somewhere. Something tells me you’re going to hate it.”
I’d never seen Jerrica with an evil look on her face until now.
“Probably.” I folded my arms. “I’m also not sure it’s a good idea.”
“What? That you buyanothercar? Or that I drive it.”
“Definitely not the first.” I let my eyes drop to her tits and then her stomach, looking back up slowly and purposefully. “We can’t get involved.”
She shrugged. “You do know that my brother is not my keeper and has no say on who I might date, sleep with or have any form of relationship with, don’t you?”
I nodded. “Got that. But Nate knows me, and I know if anything happened with us, he’d lynch me. Nate knows shit about me, Jerrica, and that shit means I’m definitely not who he wants getting into his baby sister’s bed. I’m the team’s captain. He’s my vice. Athletic is going to push to win the league this season, and we’re in the Champions’ League too. Nate and I will more than likely be in the team for the World Cup. If he hates me, it fucks up more than our friendship. I’m not willing to do that.”
“What shit does he know?” She walked closer to me.
I saw beads of sweat clinging to the skin just above her sports bra, drops slipping down in erotic little rivulets.
This was self-flagellation. Putting Jerrica in close contact with me every fucking day for six months and not being able to touch was akin to a prison sentence. I already knew I wouldn’t be asking her to drive me to either of my hook-ups’ houses. I was half thinking that this would end up being a period of abstinence, or in translation, me punishing myself for making a huge fucking mistake.
Jerrica was not my usual type. She was too young, too soft and too fucking innocent, despite the hot shower scene I’d read last night that she’d written. I doubted she’d experienced what she’d penned either.
I wondered how much to tell her. “I have a kink. An ex-girlfriend threatened to tell her story to the media, and Nate heard those threats.”
“Is this why you don’t have a revolving door of women?”
“Pretty much.”
“What’s your kink?” Her eyes widened. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“No. You’ll use it as research for your books.”
Her pretty mouth curled up into a prettier grin and she folded her arms, which only pushed her tits up. “Maybe.”
I wanted to ask her about her writing. Did she get herself off when she wrote those steamy scenes? Who did she picture in her head when she was writing them? Was it me? Had it been me? Or were there other members of the team? She’d chosen to write romance books about a football club.
I wasn’t going to ask her any of those questions.
“So that’s definitely not a conversation we’ll be having.”
Her hands dropped to her hips, that chin turning stubborn.
“Are you always this bossy?”
