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The same physical desire she’d had for Screw not five minutes ago.
Shit.
As if life wasn’t complicated enough.
“I’ll be fifteen minutes tops,” she said then did the only thing she could think to keep her sanity.
She fled into the bathroom.
A cold shower would do her well, but with forecast in the low forties again, burning hot was what she’d be choosing. After flipping the shower on, she stripped out of her clothes, averting her gaze from the mirror in a dance she’d perfected over the last year and a half. As the steam of the warm water wafted from behind the curtain, fogging the mirror, she relaxed in the knowledge she didn’t have to stress about where to focus her gaze.
In the span of a few hours, the stable life she’d created for herself seemed to have flipped upside down and been given a vigorous shake.
Screw was wearing her down. She hated to admit it, but his constant attention and efforts combined with his irresistible freaking sex appeal, and he was well and truly getting under her skin. Or he had been until Gumby walked back into her life reminding her of all she’d wanted and been so close to having.
A man who wanted her for more than just a few hours with her body.
Not that any of it mattered. No matter how weak Screw made her or how many old desires Gumby stirred, neither would get a shot at her body.
She glanced at her blurry form in the hazy mirror.
No man would.
CHAPTER NINE
GUMBY PULLED INTO the parking lot of the cabin Jazz assured him was actually a hole in the wall restaurant about forty-five minutes from where she lived. The place was apparently owned by a James Beard-winning chef who’d grown tired of life in busy city restaurants and moved to the mountains of Tennessee. He now owned a cozy but eclectic restaurant in the Smoky Mountains.
“It’s really beautiful here,” he said as he stepped out of her SUV. Had it been summer, he would have seriously considered taking his sweet time and riding his bike across the country, but he’d known crossing the US in January would have been a miserable and sometimes dangerous endeavor.
“It is. I never realized how much I would love the mountains.” She reached for her door handle, but he’d jogged around the vehicle, then pulled it open before she had the chance to do it for herself.
“Thank you,” she said, cheeks pink.
He extended a hand, holding it still. Would she take it?
After hesitating a second, she placed her gloved hand in his. Gumby drew her up from the car. Without releasing her small hand, he started for the restaurant. Surprisingly, she didn’t try to free herself from his hold. Instead, she curled her fingers around his.
The scene he’d walked in on, Screw practically devouring her, had been on his mind all morning as they’d driven through the gorgeous snowy scenes of the Tennessee mountains.
Jazz had clearly been into it. Her glossy eyes, swollen lips, and pointed little nipples didn’t lie. Then there was Screw. He hadn’t so much as glanced Gumby’s way, but the raspy, lust-laden voice he’d whispered to Jazz in might as well have been a tight fist around Gumby’s cock. In that moment, he couldn’t have said who he was more jealous of. He’d wanted to be the man who’d kissed Jazz stupid, but he’d also have killed for Screw to whisper to him with that fucking sex voice.
When they reached the door, Gumby held it open for Jazz who shot him a small grin as she slipped inside the door.
“Welcome!” a middle-aged woman with a tight bun of silvery hair and snowflake apron greeted them. “Cold one today, huh?”
Gumby chuckled. “Yes, ma’am, it is.”
“Well, come on in. We’re not busy right now so I have an open table right by the fireplace. Sound good to you two?”
“Sounds perfect,” Jazz answered as she pulled off her gloves then hat.
Gumby trailed Jazz who followed the woman to a wooden table directly in front of a roaring fireplace surrounded floor to ceiling by stone. Heat immediately permeated his chilled skin. Jazz let out a little moan of pleasure as she held her hands open in front of the flames.
“That feels amazing.”
Jesus, was she trying to kill him? All he could think of were those words falling off her lips as he pleasured her with his tongue.
After being seated, a menu was placed in front of each of them and they fell into silence as they scanned their options. “What are you thinking?” Gumby finally asked. They needed a way to break free of this disconnect. Despite chatting at the diner, sleeping in her home, and spending the morning together, they hadn’t begun to slide into a comfortable place, and it sucked.
“Their Crab Eggs Benedict is to die for. I’ll probably get that.” She kept her gaze fixed on her menu.
