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“They’re doing an office party for Valentine’s Day tomorrow and everyone is supposed to bring something. I hate to bake…and cook…and be in a kitchen.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Well, I guess what I really hate is to stand.”
Jess laughed. “Stand, as in up?”
“That’s all you do in a kitchen. Stand there and wait for shit to get done. Blah blah blah. Give me a gaming chair and my computer and I can sit contentedly all day long.”
“I’ve never thought of cooking that way, but I guess you’re right.”
Penny leaned back in the recliner, her gaze on Jess’s face once again. “You know, you’re the first woman to ever stay here. I mean, the guys have done the occasional sleepover,” Penny accompanied that comment with a few pumps of the fists to make it clear sleepover was code for sex, “but no one has ever moved in.”
Jess felt the immediate need to clarify a few facts to Rhys’s sister. “I’m not here for a,” Jess repeated Penny’s motion, “sleepover. I had a bit of bad luck and needed a place to stay. Jasper and I sleep in the guest room.Onlythe guest room.”
“Oh, I wasn’t insinuating it was anything more than that. I’m just…surprised, I guess. Tony and Rhys are well-ensconced in their bachelorhood, creatures of habit. I mean, look at this place. Minimal decorations, no frills, no fuss, no mess.”
“I think you can attribute the lack of mess to Aunt Berta,” Jess added.
“Some, yeah, but have you ever seen Rhys’s bedroom?”
Jess felt herself flush. “Of course not.”
Penny laughed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just saying it’s spotless, and I know for a fact Aunt Berta doesn’t go in there. Rhys likes order in his life, routine. Nothing that ever rocks the boat. So…you and Jasper living here has me stumped.”
“It was a generous offer on Tony and Rhys’s part. Nothing more,” Jess felt compelled to explain, though she wasn’t sure if it was for Penny’s benefit or her own. She didn’t know what to make of the knowledge that Rhys was stepping way out of his comfort zone to help her. “And it’s short-term. Hopefully very short-term. No more than a month or two.”
Of course, that time limit only worked if she took the second job. Which meant it was time for her to pull on her big girl panties and make the request. She couldn’t keep taking advantage of Tony and Rhys, hanging out like some lady of leisure.
Then, because she couldn’t help herself, she decided to ask a question that had been niggling in the back of her brain since moving in here. “So they don’t date often?”
Penny shook her head. “I can’t really speak for Tony, but I know Rhys doesn’t. He never has. He says he’s married to his career and his patients will always come first. I’ve tried to tell him doctors can have both—the job and the family—but Rhys has never been interested in that. I mean, he’s great with kids, but he’s never expressed any interest in having his own. In fact, he’s said outright that he doesn’t want them.”
“That’s a shame,” Jess mused. “I think he’d be a great father.”
Penny nodded in agreement. “Yeah, so do I.”
“So no girlfriendsever?” Jess was struggling to wrap her head around that fact. Surely Rhys had been in love at some point in his life.
“No. He has a few female friends with benefits, I guess you’d call them. Whenever he gets horny, he asks out one of them. Rhys is not the falling-in-love type. He’s not even the romantic type. I accepted a long time ago I’m never going to have nieces or nephews, which makes me sad.”
“Thatissad.”
Penny nodded, then added, “I think it’s the same for Tony. While I’ve never heard him swear off marriage and kids like Rhys, he’s definitely not looking too hard. If you ask me, it would be a hell of a shame if Tony Moretti didn’t reproduce. Genes like his need to be passed on to sons for future generations of women to enjoy.”
Jess laughed, mainly to conceal how much Penny’s comments bothered her. She needed to stop indulging her silly fantasies about Tony and Rhys. Night after night, she found herself dreaming of the two of them taking her, claiming her, making her theirs…forever.
The sexual aspects of those fantasies were off-the-charts hot, which meant she lived in a constant state of arousal, something that was getting harder and harder to control. As such, she found herself blushing more frequently around them, like a silly schoolgirl with her first crush.
Which, when she thought about it, probably wasn’t exactly too far from the truth. They were both older and she was woefully inexperienced.
If only they weren’t so charming and sexy and…
God,enough.
If they wanted to die childless bachelors, that was their decision to make, and it had no bearing on her future plans.
“Well, for what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here. Maybe we could hang out one day, binge watchMurder Mystery Makeup Mondayson YouTube.”
