“Fine,” Mom spits, waving me away.
I sigh and discreetly leave the house through the kitchen side door instead of passing back by the dining room and leaving in front of guests. I’m sure Mother will come up with an excuse for my absence when she gets back to the table. With a tension headache coming on, I climb into my car and shoot homeward where no one is waiting for me and there’s nothing to do. Grace stayed in town, but she made plans to spend the holiday with another friend of hers. I wonder idly if the friend is Castiel, which makes me think of Jayson, which makes me turn the stereo louder so I don’t have to think about anything at all.
Chapter 16
JAYSON
“We suck at keeping a professional distance, so you know what?” I say into the cellphone. I put my feet up on my desk and lean back in the leather office chair, looking up at the ceiling and picturing her smile as I leave the voicemail message. “Instead of trying to adhere to the ‘You’re my client, and I’m your contractor’ roles, I propose we go out tomorrow and just be two friends. You agreeable to that? See you tomorrow around one.” The date in question is the trip to the estate sale. When the time comes to pick her up on Saturday afternoon, I pull up to her house just as the clouds roll in. It feels like autumn, chilly and damp, a good day to curl up in bed and have pillow talk. Kitrina walks out of her house and crosses the newly refurbished front porch the guys finished yesterday, jogging down the tall flight of stairs and smiling through the passenger window at me when she gets close enough.
“What’s this about dropping the roles?”
“I want to have a good time with you today. I don’t want you to feel you have to act any certain way.” I get out of the car and walk around to her side. She’s wearing skinny jeans and a hoodie, a pair of fur boots keeping her feet warm. The sight of her elicits a low whistle out of me. “You look ready to take on the world. Good afternoon, Ms. Schneider.” I open the passenger door for her.”
“I thought we were doing away with formalities like that this evening, Mr. Zephyr,” she says with a grin. She climbs into my truck, and I close the door for her.
“Not just this evening,” I amend as I get back in the driver’s seat. I grip the steering wheel and ponder how to broach the subject, figuring I should just come right out and say it. “I can’t see us losing touch with each other, and that’s exactly what’s gonna happen if we keep on the track we’re going now. I want to be friends with you because the alternative is that in another week and a half we shake hands and part ways since I won’t be working for you anymore.”
“You make it sound like we’ll never see each other again.”
“Exactly. We won’t have a reason to see each other after that.” Raindrops patter one by one, quickly becoming a deluge. “Here comes the storm.”
“I like rainy days,” Kit replies. “Days like this I could lay in bed for hours listening to the rain.”
“You must’ve read my mind,” I chuckle. I want to reach across and hold her hand, but I can’t do that…yet. “Kitrina, I don’t need much in life, mainly because I’m too busy tending to other people’s needs. But, I think I need you around.”
I watch the afternoon sunlight slant through the wet windshield where raindrops continue to fall, and the light illuminates her graphite-gray eyes. The corners of her lips turn down, curve upwards, turn back down. “I don’t know what to say to that,” she answers.
I shrug. I know she heard what I asked for—friendship—and I know she knows what went unsaid. I reply lightly, “Just tell me I won’t have to say goodbye to you anytime soon. I suck at goodbyes.”
“Fair enough. You won’t.”
With a grin that lasts me all the way to the estate sale, the two of us embark on our journey.
I’ve never been around a woman who knows as much as Kitrina does about decorating. As we wait for the sale to start, the owners of the property allow the thirty or so buyers to walk through the home and take a look at what’s up for grabs. Kit prattles on about harmony, balance, colors, textures and lines, and I listen in pleasant amusement at how she lights up when talking about something that interests her. I’m not a rich man, but seeing her enthusiasm makes me want to buy her everything she desires.
“I’m glad you brought me here,” she whispers as the sale kicks off. She confided her budget to me, and I’m well aware she can’t afford many of the pieces, but I’m good friends with one of the owners. He’s willing to give Kit and me a twenty-five percent discount on the total cost. When Kit gushes over a multicolored sectional and matching ottomans with various patterns, I instantly bid on it. “Are you serious? I can’t let you do that,” she hisses at me in surprise.
“Relax, I’ve got this,” I quiet her. I raise my paddle again as the price goes up a little higher. I lean toward Kit and reply, “That’s what friends are for.” Rather than protesting, she erupts with quiet giggles.
“Is that why you gave me that speech?” she whispers back.
I hold up my paddle one last time, and the auctioneer yells, “Sold! To the gentleman in the red shirt in the back.”
I whisper teasingly into Kit’s ear, “I pour out my heart and soul to you about wanting to keep you in my life as my bestie ever, and here you are thinking it was some kind of ploy to buy you a sectional.” She laughs even harder. “You’re gonna get us kicked out of here,” I warn, chuckling. It goes on like that for the rest of the auction. I end up purchasing the sectional and some old chairs, and Kitrina gets some artwork and a dresser. All the pieces are vintage but high quality, well cared for. We get in my truck to leave after making arrangements to have the furniture delivered, and I can tell Kit is ecstatic.
“I’d say that went nicely. Is it starting to feel more like your home now? It’s my company tagline. We make it home,” I state after walking her inside her place. Kit turns to me with unshed tears clinging to her lashes. I smile as I cup her face and stare down at her. “Now, don’t get all emotional on me.”
“You have no idea how much this means to me.” She gestures around the room. “I don’t mean to turn on the waterworks. It’s more than the renovations or even the furniture. I just—Jayson, I can’t imagine saying goodbye to you, either. You know how hard I’ve tried to do exactly that? All my life I’ve played by the rules and been successful. It’s scary to think of setting aside the playbook and going against the grain.”
I drop my hands, nodding understanding. Once again she’s putting boundaries up between us. I represent going against the grain, breaking the rules, possible failure to achieve her goals. I don’t see how, but it’s what she believes. I sigh. “I’m not going to force you. Have a good night, Kit.” I turn to walk out the door, but she grabs my arm.
“Wait a minute.”
I turn around slowly, resolving this is the last time I’ll play ping-pong with her. This shit has got to stop. She’s already made it clear she’s not open to more. I should’ve stuck with friendship and kept it strictly platonic.
Kitrina grabs me by the collar of my shirt and gently tugs me closer. “What’s this?”
She kisses my lips. I’m confused. She murmurs, “When I first met you and we were talking about all the work that needs to be done around this place, I tossed in a few things that were wrong with my love life too. Now I wonder if you can renovate my heart the same way you’ve renovated my house.”
KITRINA
I have no idea what I’m doing. It just feels right. My fingers slip to his hand and I slowly pull him behind me up to the bedroom that’s almost complete. On the floor is the pallet I laid out in anticipation of arriving home late and wanting to go straight to bed. I didn’t plan on bringing him back up with me. But there’s a romantic quality to the spread. Pillows are piled at the top of the thick pile of blankets.
I don’t bother to turn on the bedroom light. Moonlight filtered by purple clouds shines through the French doors that lead out to the balcony. When I look back at Jayson, there’s a startled expression on his face that
would be funny if I wasn’t feeling the same way. Scared, but ready.
He follows me to the foot of the covers and stands in front of me with his fingertips brushing lightly down the sides of my arms. I shiver involuntarily. Jayson glides his tongue past my lips and kisses me tenderly. My head lolls back, silky hair tumbling over my shoulder as he kisses down the other side of my neck with hot, moist pecks that summon heat below my belt. Tingles shoot through me like electricity. Outside, it thunders and I jump, knowing exactly what the sky is feeling: In need of release. “Make love to me,” I murmur heatedly.
He lowers me to the floor and kneels above me, his gaze like liquid gold spilling down my body while his nimble fingers grab the hem of my sweatshirt and draw it over my head. My chest is rising and falling rapidly, and the lush mounds in my lacy pink bra draw his attention. I almost want to cover myself back up, but I want him to see. His mouth slides over the hill to the middle of my cleavage, and his breath tickles my skin, making my nipples pebble against the lace that binds them. I can’t believe I’m doing this.
“Are you sure?” he whispers. It’s just like in my fantasies. Not knowing what normally comes next, inexperienced as I am, the dream usually stops here. This is the part where I could say no to Jayson, and I’m sure he would stop, let me play it safe.
But, as dangerous as this feels, the walls up between us have to be torn down. I’m ready for the demolition because I know what comes after the pain will be beautiful. Jayson stills, waiting for my answer, his harsh, excited breaths feathering my chest. “If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t be offering,” I confess. There’s a pause in which he allows me time to renege. Our eyes collide, graphite and amber. I don’t back down.
I reach behind my back and unfasten my bra, allowing my breasts to spill free, and it’s all the answer he needs. Suddenly everything changes. The controlled languid responses of a moment ago evaporate in a hiss of steam when his mouth captures a hardened nipple. A shocking pulse of pleasure arcs through me from my swollen, tender breasts to my molten core, and I gasp his name in amazement, clinging to his bulky shoulders. I expected something sensual, something predictable, not this wild abandonment that ricochets between us like vivid madness.
His tongue licks and laves the pink bud. He nibbles and suckles, all the while looking up at me. The onslaught is too much, the combination of silken tongue, rainy mouth, stormy eyes—a tornado of lust spins through me—the Zephyr effect. I drop my head back to the floor and arch my back, thrusting my chest forward into his open mouth. Then, he moves his lips to the unattended breast and my excitement doubles.
My hands clasp around the back of his head and neck. My legs make a noose around his rolling hips, while his pelvis nudges against mine in a fricative bump and grind that emulates sex. The only thing between us is our clothes. Jayson lowers me completely to the floor as his lips inch lower and lower down my writhing torso, and the sounds of ecstasy that explode past my lips are candid enough to make me blush.
His feather-light touch follows his lips down my quivering stomach to unfasten my pants. I squeeze my eyes shut and listen to the eager breaths panted into the darkness and the whisper of rain and crackle of thunder overlapping that. With my heart throbbing in my chest hard enough to break through my rib cage, I shimmy to help Jayson remove my pants. I’m left in nothing but my panties and bra. In the darkness his shadowy form sits back on his haunches and stares at me awash in moonlight.
“Goddamn, you’re beautiful,” he murmurs feverishly, easing back on top of me.
“I want to see you, too,” I whisper shyly. I don’t know why I’m whispering. This moment enclosed in shadows and sighs is our secret. We’re here in my home, the place he made new for me. The first place of my own I’ve ever had. The magnitude of that gift hits me—my gift to myself, his gift to me. Leading here, to this moment, where in the haze of desire, I can feel a new, much bolder Kitrina emerge. My exploring hands dip beneath his shirt to experience the satin of his skin while his lips return to passionately kiss mine, eliciting shivers and soft moans. I feel faint with pleasure, revived by the electricity of his touch, the heightened arousal almost too much to bear, nothing like anything I’ve ever felt before. He moves back from the V of my spread legs.
“You can see as much of me as you desire,” he promises heatedly. My face colors as he rises on his knees and tugs his shirt off, exposing the rippling muscles of his chest. And it’s not like I haven’t seen him before…just not like this...
He rises and towers over me, removing his pants. I see for the first time his corded thighs encased in boxer briefs. Jayson stares me in the eyes as he moves his work-roughened hand to grip the girth of his shaft, and he shifts his erection. A shyness I try to keep from surfacing snatches my breath, and anticipation wells up within, makes me reach for him before I lose my nerve. When he returns to my embrace, there’s no stopping the headlong rush into discovery.
We undress completely in a frenzied rush. Jayson responsibly manifests a condom from his discarded jeans, and I experience a small surge of appreciation for his foresight. There was no way he could’ve predicted this would happen, but he’s prepared. He turns his back to me and, after a second, repositions himself atop my eager body.
Now, my inner voice compels. I tightly clench my eyes and brace myself. A slow inhale is required as he gently probes at the entrance to my inner self. We both feel his shaft abut the barrier. Jayson halts himself tensely, and when I open my eyes he’s staring down at me incredulously. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he murmurs.
“Shh, keep going,” I urge. “I don’t want you to stop.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he growls.
“Sometimes it hurts to get past what’s holding us back, but it’s the only way to move forward.”
Jayson surges forward, swift and sure, and I feel a snapping/popping sensation, a blossom of warm red pain, and then a tremor of pleasure. As fast as the hurt, the ecstasy reemerges. At first it’s a tingle of awareness, feeling the slick interior push and pull of his penetration and retreat, over and over. Gradually the hurt is assuaged by the thrill. I breathe heavily, moving instinctively. I thrust my pelvis forward to envelope him whole. There are no words. There simply is no way to describe what is happening.
Jayson Zephyr is making me, Kitrina Schneider… a woman.
Part 3
Chapter 17
KITRINA
Sometimes it’s hard to tell if I’m seeing things for what they are. I get lost in my dreams a lot. I’m not talking about the images that fill my head at night while sleeping. I’m talking about the wild, farfetched plans for the future, the borderline impossible, the make believe I want to make real. A lot of people say I’m a dreamer. I’m a twenty-year-old interior design student with a vivid imagination…at a point in my life where I think my dreams are about to start coming true. It all depends on if I can get others to see what I see.
I wake up to the sound of soft, raspy snores. A sound that shouldn’t be present, if it’s not coming from me. It takes a full minute for me to register what I’m hearing as I lie there on the pile of blankets in the incomplete bedroom. I wake up by degrees, noticing first the break in the silence, then the cozy snugness of my covers…and the very masculine arm thrown across my body. “What the…”
My eyes snap open and see the man sleeping next to me, and the memories flood back—hot kisses and feverish touches I encouraged, even returned—memories too uncharacteristic of me to be true. Only the sensual sex session of last night couldn’t have been dreamed because until last night the virginal Kitrina Schneider—me!—didn’t have enough experience to make up the details. Oh my gosh, I lost my virginity to Jayson Zephyr! “Holy shi--!” I mouth mutely, covering my lips to muffle the hissed expletive.
I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I dropped my inhibitions enough to go all the way, but the evidence blinks his amber eyes and stares me plain in the face.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he groggily murmur
s. He stretches. His brawny arms bulge with muscles, and the sight of his chiseled abs irresistibly draws my attention. The sexy contractor emits a relaxed groan, artlessly erotic, that stirs the butterflies in my stomach. The sheet incompletely covering his bare torso slips a little lower to expose his bare upper pelvis, and my face goes crimson. A tiny, reasonable mental voice asks, Why the hell are you blushing? It occurs to me that I saw all of him last night, and he saw all of me. But things are different when the lights are out.
Jayson modestly eases the sheet up to cover himself and chuckles softly at my prudish reaction, which only makes me blush redder. “Good morning,” I respond nervously, averting my gaze. I’m fidgety and self-conscious, last night’s confidence disappearing in the pitiless dawn light. This is the dreaded “morning after.” I’ve heard the horror stories from countless girls—read the books, seen the movies— the moment when the romance necessary to get the goods fizzles out once the goods are got. It varies from situation to situation, but it’s a classic post-sex denouement and I sit there miserably wondering what exactly my situation with Jayson is.
I didn’t want to have to wonder after my first experience. I was always sure that by the time this happened, I’d know the guy well enough to predict his response. I didn’t factor in desire.
I sneak a glance. He’s looking at me; I force myself to keep looking at him. I don’t know what to say next. The silence swells uncomfortably, and I wonder if I misjudged his intentions the night before. To top it all off, I can hear my mother’s voice like she’s present in the room, telling me I made another bad decision. She doesn’t even sound critical, just sad. I squeeze my eyes shut and wish I could poof into thin air.
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