Page 38 of The Trouble with Flings

“Wild girl, you’re better than good, and you’ll be excellent at this, too.” His hand guides mine, firm but not controlling, as I make a cut. “You’re muscling it. Let the blade do the work.”

“I’m not muscling it.”

“Jennifer.”

That commanding tone should not turn me on, especially when we’re cutting chicken, but neither should his warm breath on my cheek, and yet here we are. “Okay, maybe I’m muscling it a little.”

“Try it with me.” His hand guides mine through the motions.

The knife slides cleaner this time. “Oh,” I say softly.

“See?” he says.

“Yes, but I don’t like that you’re right.”

“You do a little,” he says, low and sexy.

I do. That’s the problem.

His fingers slide over the back of my hand as he releases it, and he says, “Make another cut. I want to watch you.”

He says it so seductively, images of last night—when he spread me out on the bed and told me to touch myself, then watched as he stroked his cock—come rushing in. I try to concentrate on cutting the chicken and not the heat burning me from the inside out, but it’s like trying not to breathe.

“Good girl,” he says, those dark eyes taunting me.

Like a match to tinder, my entire body goes up in flames.

“Keep going,” he encourages as he picks up his knife, acting infuriatingly normal.

“That was cruel,” I say, my body humming with desire.

Those piercing eyes meet mine. “Was it? Or will it make everything that much better when we’re finally alone?”

Therein lies the other problem. Not only do I know he’s right, but now that he’s planted that seed of anticipation, it’s impossible to think about anything else.

Chapter Ten

Fitz

The next morning, the steam from the shower wraps around us like a cocoon. The water is hot, but we’re hotter as my mouth claims Jennifer’s with forceful domination. Fuck oxygen. This incredible woman is all I need, her soft curves sliding against my hard frame, her skin slick and warm beneath my hands, her body squeezing my cock tight as a vise as we lose ourselves in each other for the umpteenth time.

Our departure looms like a villain I want to slay. I know what this week was supposed to be, what she needed it to be—an agreement with an exit plan from the get-go. I wanted to be with her badly enough that I was willing to go along with it, even though I knew it would fucking kill me to say goodbye again.

I push those painful thoughts away, reveling in the here and now. I quicken my pace as she rides my cock, water slipping through our voracious kisses as I send her reeling. She cries out my name, and I want to memorize that sound and every single second of her sweet surrender. But she feels too good—we feel too good—and I give in to my own explosive release, obliterating my ability to think at all.

We ride out our pleasure in a flurry of thrusts and moans.

When she finally goes soft in my arms, her head falls beside mine, and I hold her tighter. She exhales, slowly and fully, in the way I’ve come to not just know but long for. To some men that exhale wouldn’t mean much beyond her being sexually sated. To me, it’s everything. She only does it when she feels safe enough to let down every guardrail. I know the way she carries herself, managing every room and every moment with relentless competence, and I know what it costs her to hand me that trust.

“Fitz,” she pants out.

“Hm?”

“You’ve completely ruined me,” she says without a hint of amusement.

The emotions in her voice move through me like an asp seeking a permanent den. I hold my breath, certain she’s going to catch herself and joke her way out of this. When she doesn’t, my chest constricts from the realization that she feels it too, and she’s not managing it. She’s not keeping one foot out the door or running calculations in her head the way I’ve watched her do on and off all week.

I shift so I can see the face of this complicated, beautiful woman who runs a school full of kids not enough people fight for, who surfs like she was born to do it, who laughs until she cries over a cooking class, and looks at an old couple holding hands like their love is something she decided she doesn’t get to want. But that heart of hers is too big not to bleed through.