Oh. God. I rushed to turn the vibrator off, but it only upped the setting, which felt fucking amazing. I pressed it again. Then again. And finally, it turned off. As the steps got closer, I let it drop, realizing my tits were just out, and yanked the blanket over them just as Jack entered.
“Oh.”
“Hey.” The word came out breathy. I cleared my throat. “Hey.”
Jack tilted his head in confusion. “You okay? The sink is still filled with water and dishes.”
“What?” I croaked. “Yeah, I’ll get to them. I was just…” The words hovered in the air as my mind went blank.Say. Something.“I got a headache.”
Jack turned to leave. He must have known something was up. But he came back thirty seconds later with an ice pack wrapped in a dish towel. He approached me, and I reached under the sheet, stopping myself before he saw that I was semi-topless. I must have looked like the big bad wolf with this thing pulled up to my chin.
He pushed my hair away from my forehead and placed the pack in its place.
“Thank you.”
Jack nodded. “You sure you’re okay? I thought I heard you groan, and you look flushed. Do you want me to grab you some?—”
“No. No. I already took something. I’m just lying in the dark, trying to chill.”
He narrowed his eyes. “The light’s on.”
“Not when my eyes are closed.” Again, the urge to pull my hand out of this blanket and point at my eyes came, and I clutched my thigh to stop myself.
“Those meds must be kicking in. You sure you don’t need anything else?” Man, of all the times for him to be nice to me.
“Nope. Thank you.” I tried to sound sincere, but I was more stressed than anything. He had no reason to peel the blanket down, thank god.
By the time he left, mentioning something about missing his favorite hammer or whatever, I was amped up and desperate. Details of him flooded in. He’d had sweat on his brow, probably from walking in the heat, and a hole in his shirt just below his collarbone. I wondered what it’d feel like to stick my finger between the broken fibers, touching solid muscle, feeling the warmth of his skin.
I lifted my head off the pillow and listened as best I could. He was gone. I was safe. I turned it back on, doing my best to get back into the moment. I’d seen the outline of him under his sweats a dozen times, and that wasn’t even with him being hard. He had to be big. It would fit so well between my thighs…
The vibrations ended. I pressed the button again. And again. And again and again.
The whine that came out of me was unseemly. I turned my head, and the ice pack I’d forgotten about slipped along with its towel, the cold side landing on my neck. The sound that followed that was no more dignified than the first. I pulled the vibratorfrom beneath the sheets and had the world’s worst staring contest.
I was wrong. Apparently, it could fail me.
“If you’re stumped,you should try the lobster gyoza. It’s my favorite.”
A smiling Chase peeked at me from behind his menu. He seemed so naturally friendly, and it had me contemplating why Jack had looked so weird when my date picked me up. He’d been confused when Chase arrived and more confused when Chase told him he was taking me out to dinner. The look had been a flash of something I’d never seen from him before, but I wasn’t going to read into it.
“I love lobster gyoza,” I said, though I’d never had it in my life. At least I knew I liked lobster.
We went to the Pinecrest Lodge’s Asian fusion restaurant, Sakura, whose dress code was semi-casual. My feet were nearly healed, so I was able to wear flats and a sundress, which I appreciated.
Sakura was one of three restaurants at the resort. There was also Hidden Hearth, their Michelin-star restaurant, and Après-Ski, a quirky hole-in-the-wall on top of the mountain that primarily dealt in warm cocktails. This one was more mid-tier and was one of my favorites in town.
Chase had offered to take me out of Wildwood, but I’d told him there was no need. Something about the familiarity made me happy. And this restaurant was unique in that it had a life-size fake cherry tree in the middle, with pink-petaled flowers dangling overhead.
Chase was the quintessential gentleman. He wore a button-up plaid shirt, with sleeves and everything, even in eighty-five-degree heat. It must have been stifling. It also may have explained why they were accidentally misbuttoned, but I didn’t want to say anything. His jeans were dark blue and snug. His shoes weren’t covered in dirt. It might have been a low bar, but we did live in the wilderness. Despite his overeager look, he seemed perfectly comfortable and was easy to talk to.
We ordered our food, along with their nicest thirty-dollar bottle of sake, which Chase had asked for with a grin.
Once the small talk was out of the way and our server had left, we were all alone. I twiddled with the napkin in my lap and stared at the paper tablecloth, which was temporarily blocked from view when Chase handed me a crayon to draw.
“I’ve always wanted to know, what’s it like to be a travel influencer?”
I sketched some evergreen trees. Chase was drawing what looked like a dog. “It’s great. I get to go all over the place, obviously. Um… I try food from all over. I meet a lot of cool people.” Why did this sound like a middle school report on what I did last summer?
