Chapter 14
“Wait!” Lily-Grace put her hands on Jesse’s rock-solid waist, and took a step back. She did her best to ignore the way his muscles felt through his shirt. “Jenny told me you had a big fat crush on her.”
“I tried.”
“What do you mean, you tried?”
“Junior year before homecoming. I decided it was time for me to at least try to get a girlfriend. Jenny has always been nice to me and she is pretty. Always has been.”
“So you’re saying you had the hots for my best friend?” she teased, kinda.
“I tried. But I only saw her as a friend. And she turned me down anyway. But the whole school found out, and my brothers found out, and Sam let it slip to my mom, and then she and Mrs. Yang had anoh, are they so cutelaugh about it. It was embarrassing as hell and I took a vow of silence. Jenny let me down easy though. She wanted to go to the dance with Vinny.”
“Hmmm.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Fuck Vinny. Well, if you’re sure you’re not secretly still pining for Jenny too.”
“I’m very sure.”
“Okay. Then I think you and I can work something out.” Lily-Grace stepped back into his arms, ignoring the voice in the back of her head warning her to maybe rethink this whole situation. Was it a possible disaster waiting to happen? Hell yes. Even if it ended in a week, she still wanted to see it through. Plus she figured she needed more than one swim lesson. “Should we go back inside? Clarissal is a fucking disaster.”
“Yeah, we should, but I’d like to kiss you first.”
“Well, you should definitely kiss me,” Lily-Grace replied, closing the small gap between them. Jesse was hesitant at first, but like he’d done in the swimming pool, he caught on quickly. Lily-Grace tried not to moan when his lips parted and his tongue brushed against hers. She almost managed to keep how bad she wanted him at bay, until his hand slipped lower down her back and pulled her closer. She just could picture it, skipping the rest of this reality show so they could slip back to his bedroom and finish what this kiss was absolutely starting.
“Jesse,” she breathed. He looked back at her with impossibly dark brown eyes. “You have to promise me we take this part slow.”
She shivered as he reached up and drew his thumb lightly over her cheek. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to scare you away.”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking. What I want to do to you right now. What I want you to do to me.” She could picture the kind of fun they could have with a riding crop and a pair of handcuffs.
“You’re assuming that I’m not having those same thoughts. Lack of experience doesn’t mean there’s a lack of desire. I’m trying to be a gentleman.”
Lily-Grace wanted to press him, see how far she could go with this hypothetical conversation, expressing those dirty thoughts out loud, but that would ruin things. She had no doubt Jesse had some vanilla fantasies of her stored in his special alone-time files. But even if he’d conjured up some thoughts of her that were more on the risque side of things, he wasn’t ready to go there yet, not in real life. What she had in mind? That was his deep end of the pool, and she needed time and his trust to get them to the same depth together. She leaned up and kissed him on the mouth one more time. “Let’s go inside.”
He hesitated, but before he could argue she took his hand and pulled him. She ignored the way her palm tingled against his massive palm, and stored away the thoughts of what he could do with those strong fingers, for another time.
They rejoined the gang and made it through the most drawn-out rose ceremony. Clarissal kept some real stinkers around, but that would only add to the drama to come, on this season ofThe Bachelorette.Lily-Grace knew it would be bad form to stay over, but she wasn’t ready to leave quite yet. The whole experience was torture for Lily-Grace, because she ended up back in Jesse’s arms on their end of the sectional. Pressed up against him while his fingers drew lazy circles over her hip. Instead of her brain doing the kind, charitable thing and luring her to sleep for the remaining thirty-five minutes of the watch party, her brain decided to delve into those fantasies she thought Jesse wasn’t ready to hear.
Images of her sitting naked on those tree-trunk thighs, while he’s still fully dressed in another of his perfectly tailored suits. Wearing his Stetson of course. Or maybe she’s wearing it and only it. She thought about what it would be like to get a spanking from one of those large hands. There was more, much more that she wanted to do, some of it on her knees. By the time the show ended she was warm all over and hot and wet between her legs.
When Jesse stood up and headed into the kitchen, she followed. “Let me help with cleanup,” she offered, her voice coming off a little too light and fluffy.
“We’d love to help, but we have some making out to do in the driveway,” Lilah said. Apparently the date auction had worked out for her and Dr. Kuaea too.
“Thanks for having me. This was fun.” Fetu shouted his goodbyes as Lilah dragged him toward the front door.
“Can’t stop a woman on a mission,” Jesse said as he opened the dishwasher. Lily-Grace started rinsing and handing him plates and cups, while Vega and Corie put the living room back in order.
“Okay, I have to get going too,” Vega announced as she pulled on her jacket. “New patient in the morning.”
“Vega’s a private care nurse,” Jesse explained.
