“I’ll be back,” Mindy said, hopping off my lap. I stretched my legs.
It was no use. Everywhere I looked, there was Jill, and everywhere I looked, there was no Jill. Something inside me plummeted thirty stories, like a runaway elevator out of control. I slid my hands up and down the slippery sides of my glass of whiskey, and it was her smooth skin under my fingers, her wet lips under my touch.
We’d crossed several lines that we both knew stretched between us. The I’m-too-old-for-you-and-you’re-too-young-for-me line, the don’t-be-a-horndog line, the don’t-fuck-with-the-single-mom line, the we’re-just-friends line, the I’m-fucking-someone-else-and-I-shouldn’t-be-wanting-you line.
I was attracted to Jill in a goddamn painful way. Even now, my balls ached, my chest hurt. I was supposed to be looking out for her.
That’s what I do.
Not breathing heavily over her, taking advantage of her. She was pregnant with Grace’s kid, and I was the next best thing to an uncle that kid would ever have. And there was Mindy. I’d kept forgetting about Mindy.
What the hell was I thinking?
I’m not thinking.
It was up to me to stop it. This was just a fuck-up, a blip, a bad move. It was totally natural. There she’d been, topless, less than a foot away from me. Shit, it was a crazy moment of insane indulgence. Back to status quo tomorrow.
I leaned back in my seat. Before I dissolved the memories, I relived holding her in my arms again, her tongue sliding against mine in some sort of discovery journey of tasting, stroking, and fire-branding.
Fuck.
Mindy danced on the smaller side stage. A blond college geek hooted loudly as he stuffed bills in her G-string, and she licked her lips as she rocked her ass at him. It was crude and hot, but it wasn’t giving me an erection, like it had weeks ago when we first started fucking. Mindy was a pretty girl with a sleek body who seemed to enjoy whatever I’d dished out.
“Boner.”
But it was only Jill’s voice I heard begging for more of me. Jill’s smooth, silky body coming to life under my touch.
Jill. Jill. Jill.
She’d felt so right in my hands, her heart beating so damn fast in her chest, her body trembling at that first fucking touch. Her full lips had opened for me, her eager tongue had danced with mine, her little moans had come soft and quick. She’d pressed those hips against me, urging me on. I could’ve fucked her right there in that tiny bright pink dressing room.
And I’d wanted to. God, I’d wanted to.
I could barely stop myself, but it was more than the instinct to fuck, to get off. It was this whole body experience.
And what the hell was that?
I gritted my teeth. I’d wanted to mate with her. Every cell in my body and brain had called out to her, drawing me to her. I had a unique hunger only she could satisfy.
She was some sort of forbidden fruit that I’d built up in my mind.
Me and forbidden fruit.
I drained the whiskey from my glass and signaled for another.
It was wrong. Wrong.
Here was a bright and determined girl who was getting a fresh start in life, settling in, carrying Grace’s kid. Jill had made that happen. There was something wrong about me lusting after her, jumping on her.
It was just some sort of alpha instinct kicking into overdrive, wasn’t it? I hadn’t been able to protect Grace, so I’d protect her baby’s mommy, like Dig had protected Jill. That was the root of all this. Had to be.
But every time Jill walked into a room, she changed the energy in it, charging it. I could feel it—this bundle of positivity and warmth, this light.
I’d felt a hell of a lot more in that fucking pink dressing room at the mall.
Butler slid an ashtray in front of me. “Hey.”
My vision focused on a long column of ash dangling from my fingers. “Thanks.” I tossed the butt into the ashtray.
I lit another smoke and sat up straighter in my chair. “So, how are you doing?” I asked Butler.
“It’s good to be back,” he said. “Good to have a routine again.”
“Things with you and Jump any better?”
“Getting there.”
“Just keep things clean, man. It’ll all be good.”
“I’ve been clean over a year now, and I’m keeping it that way.” Butler’s bright blue eyes settled on the dancer at the pole on the main stage. “I’m determined not to go backward.”
Going backward.
Jill was certainly not going backward. She’d gotten out of a bad relationship. She’d moved on to a good place for her kid and herself, determined to make a better life. And here she was, mine for the picking if I wanted, like an overripe grape dangling on the vine in front of me, begging to be plucked, promising the mellowest pulp, the sweetest juice.