by Bree Dahlia
Within my grasp stood a perfect specimen in a lightweight gray fitted suit. Perfect for a summer night. Perfectly matched to my lavender dress. We both said a simultaneous, “Wow.” Although mine was in my head, and his was out loud.
“I’ll come up with a more original way of complimenting you later, but for now, let me just say you look beautiful, Jillian. That’s the only way I can describe it right now.” Hmm… That word again. He meant it, though; I could see it in the way his eyes softened when he looked me over. Before I could say a gracious, ‘Thank you,’ he held up a six-pack of Spotted Cow. “For you.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Beer?” I took it from him and into the kitchen. How had I not noticed it before then? Chase followed me in, allowing me another eyeful. Oh, yeah. That’s why.
“Well, I couldn’t show up empty-handed, and I wasn’t going to bring flowers. Since it’s not a date.” His lips curved, and I turned away, shoving the bottles into the fridge.
“Thank you,” I said. If it were up to me, I’d skip right to dessert. Pop off a cap and drip the entire contents over the hills and into the valleys of his body. Then I’d drag my tongue over every rock-hard muscle and suck it up.
He touched my shoulder, and I shivered. “You ready to go?” he asked.
I nodded. Yes, the sooner we left, the sooner… I rotated to face him and… Damn. He really did look exceptional. A bit older too. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. If I appeared younger and he didn’t, we might actually come across as a normal couple. If we were a couple, that is.
Chase took my hand in his and led me out. I could do this. No problem. He opened the car door for me, closed it, then rounded back to the driver’s side.
It’s showtime.
He headed west and, thirty minutes later, exited on Delafield Street. I was somewhat familiar with the area but not enough to know what was around besides cornfields and gravel roads. I’d asked him right away where we were going, but only received a smile and a “You’ll see.”
Shortly after, we pulled into a place that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere but was obviously popular. The parking lot was packed full. Chase found a spot while I took in the entrance with the name splayed out across the brick: Zydecki’s. I’d never heard of it.
There was a large deck wrapped around the side with outdoor seating. White lights sprinkled throughout, and I could imagine that, when it was fully dark, it’d be gorgeous.
“What is this place?” I asked as we walked up to the restaurant.
“Best Cajun food you’ll find outside New Orleans.” I think I made a happy squeal because he squeezed my hand and smiled wide. “I take it you approve.”
“Definitely.”
To my delight, we sat outside. The weather was perfect with just the right amount of breeze. God, I felt good. Comfortable in my own skin. The bluesy music surrounding me was pleasing to my ears, and the guy who sat across from me was candy to my eyes.
And I was excited as hell to try the food. I looked over the menu, torn between five different things. “So, you’ve been there?” I asked. “New Orleans?”
“A couple years ago. You?”
I shook my head. “Always wanted to, though.” There were tons of places I wanted to travel to but never had the opportunity. I suppose there was nothing stopping me now.
“What can I get you, sugar?” Our southern belle waitress winked at Chase. She barely gave me a look.
I ordered a chicory iced coffee, having no desire for anything stronger tonight. He did the same. “Feel free to spice it up,” I told him. “I can drive if needed.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
The waitress took down our order. “If you need anything, anything at all, just let me know. My name’s Delilah.” It was glaringly obvious that she was speaking to Chase and not to me. I shook my head and laughed a little. I wondered if he got this kind of female attention wherever he went. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
“Zydeco or swamp pop?” he asked when Delilah sashayed her hips to the next table.
“Depends if I’m in the mood for something fast-tempoed or something emotionally-driven. I’m really enjoying the mixture tonight, though. The music matches the atmosphere.” Chase sat back and stared at me, small smile on his lips. I was starting to get a complex. “What?”
“I just think it’s cool that you even knew what I was talking about.”
The next hour flew by like that. Dare I say I was having a great time? The rest of the diners seemed to dissolve around me, except for Miss ‘Can I do anything for you, Sugar? My job is to serve.’ Wink wink, nudge nudge. She was impossible to ignore, like a needy cat rubbing against you every second. Or in my case, the devious cat who darts between your legs on ‘accident’ as you’re walking down the stairs. Chase seemed impervious to her innuendos, and that only seemed to make her try harder.
Fortunately, Delilah was easy enough to dismiss when she wasn’t loitering around our table, trying to overdo her job. Chase and I discussed and debated anything music-related while I died and went to Heaven with my plate of incinerating shrimp pasta. It was so worth it.
I was opening up more to being paraded in public, but I did draw the line when he tried convincing me to get up and dance with him. It was one thing to share the same restaurant and have a nice dinner and quite another to frolic in front of everyone and basically scream, “Hey, look at us—we’re together. As a couple.”
After a huge laughing spree, Chase stared at me again, but this time with a strange expression. “Your face looks….”
Flawless? Smooth? Ten years younger?
…white.”
My hands flew to my cheeks, and I started patting around. It felt crinkly under my eyes. Oh, fuck. “Excuse me.” I took off for the restroom, keeping my head lowered. What the hell is going on?
I tried my best to ignore the lady next to me washing her hands as I gaped into the mirror. I resembled a freaking barn owl. I peered closer. No, scratch that. I looked like a preschooler who got a little glue happy. My face was the opposite of flawless and smooth; it was scary and crackly like I had some weird skin disease.
I peeled off a layer from my eye mask, only to discover more white gunk underneath. If my bathroom mate was panicking that I was contagious, she didn’t act like it, bless her heart. She just nodded and smiled and quickly got the hell out of there.
I ran a paper towel under the sink and dabbed my face. After a good bit of scrubbing, all the white wrinkles were replaced by red splotches. I frantically dug through my purse, hoping to find something to cover it. I’d use chewing gum if I had to.
Fortunately, it didn’t have to come to that. I had a tube of concealer, and I made good use of it. By the time I’d stepped out of the restroom, I looked somewhat normal again, at least on the outside. On the inside, I was a heap of jumbled emotions.
The tipping point was going back to my table and finding our irritating-as-shit waitress literally hanging over Chase, giving him a hearty eyeful of her irritatingly perky-as-shit tits. No doubt she was just waiting for me to leave so she could pounce. She probably slipped a diuretic into my coffee.
She saw me and straightened, then scurried away. I flopped down on my chair, the mood pretty much over for me. Yes, I’d been having a fantastic time before my face crumbled off. Yes, it was petty of me to let something like that ruin my night. Yes, it was the inside that counted. Blah, Blah, Blah.
“You were gone awhile. I was about to send someone in there.” He paused a minute. “You look better. Is everything okay?”
“Yes. No.” Who was I fooling? I couldn’t just put on cream and magically jump back another decade. I was not even close to his age, and I never would be. “Delilah looked like she was making herself at home in my absence.” I tried to speak with zero snark, and hopefully, I accomplished it.
“She tried getting me to take her number. I didn’t want it.”
My eyes might have popped a bit. I reached for my drink, then thought better of it
and went for the water instead. “Why are you even telling me this? I wouldn’t have known. Are you always this honest?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Or… are you just trying to make me jealous?”
“Are you?”
“God, Chase. I told you I don’t get jealous.” I felt the heat bubbling to the surface, and I wasn’t sure why. “But I do think it’s very rude of her, doing something so bold when you’re here with someone else.”
Deep breath. In her defense, she probably thought I was his mother.
“I agree.”
I had to think about that for a second. At first, I thought he was agreeing to my mother comment until I realized I’d said that in my head. “Is that why you didn’t take her number? Because of the way she did it?”
He looked at me like it was now my entire brain falling off in chunks. “No, Jillian. I didn’t take it because I’m not interested in her. And that wouldn’t have changed whether I was here with you or a group of guys.”
He made it sound so simple when really it was anything but. She was young and gorgeous. Give it another fifteen, twenty years and he’d be all over that shit if she was offering it up. I needed to keep that little fact front and center. Needed to keep things real.
“It’d be easier if you were interested, Chase.” I honestly meant that too. I wasn’t doing some stupid reverse psychology crap, hoping for his reassurance. “I’m too… complicated.”
He smiled. “Aren’t all women?”
Time to bring out the big guns. “Remember at Candle Park, the kid I was talking to right before we left?” He nodded. “Who did you think that was—an ex-fling?”
Chase sputtered on his drink. “No, that had not even crossed my mind.” He raised an eyebrow. “An ex who calls you Mrs. Hudson?”
“Maybe it was a Mrs. Robinson situation.”
He shook his head. “What’s going on with you, Jillian?”
“That boy, Ben, he’s my son’s good friend.” Wait for it, wait for it. Hmm…. Nothing. “Technically, my stepson, but I’ve raised Daniel since he was two and couldn’t love him any more if he were my biological child. Without getting into too much detail, I’m pretty much the only mother he’s ever known.”
Chase was quiet for a few minutes, and I kept waiting for him to jump up and tell Southern Belle that he’d made a mistake. “The pictures on your bookshelf, those are Daniel?”
“Yes.” I figured he saw them at some point. I wasn’t hiding them, but I wasn’t thrusting them in his face either. For all Chase knew, they could have been a little brother or nephew or… “Why didn’t you ask me who he was? You seem to ask me everything else.”
“I figured you’d tell me when you wanted to.”
It sounded reasonable. I’d already gone nutso because he fixed my air conditioning; I could see him being a bit leery asking me something on the personal side.
“And now I told you,” I said.
“Am I going to meet him?”
My mouth dropped open and froze there awhile. His question had come hurling at me a hundred miles an hour out of left field. “Uh, he’s in school right now. In Italy.” And he’s only three years younger than you. And I wouldn’t embarrass him like that. And you and I will be done screwing around long before he’s home anyway. So, in other words, hell, no.
“What’s he studying?”
“International Business.”
I knew there was so much more he wanted to ask, his face contorting with unspoken thoughts. We sat across from each other in awkward silence; the easygoing vibe was gone. At least it was for me. Delilah had made herself scarce, and I almost wished for her intrusion. I was that uncomfortable. I wanted to leave.
“Anything else you want to tell me?” he asked. “To show your complication, I mean. Because if you’re trying to scare me away, I’m gonna need more than that.”
“Like that wasn’t enough?” I stared at him wide-eyed. I didn’t have anything more to throw at him right then. In what universe was it not clusterfucked to be sleeping with a guy only three years older than your son?
“No, and do you know why it’s not enough?” I shook my head. I honestly didn’t know, but I’d love to find out the magic secret. Maybe he was a crackpot. Nothing bothers those people. “Because nothing you’ve told me so far changes how I feel. You are still the woman I like. A lot. I still find you interesting and sexy as hell. I very much enjoy your company, whether we are conversing over a table or fucking on it.”
I darted my eyes around, but no one was paying us any attention. “So, you still want to come home with me?” Just because I didn’t want to be at the restaurant anymore with him didn’t mean I’d given up on him completely. I was still crazy enough to want the mind-blowing pleasure. Chase wasn’t running for the hills yet, and I still had a handful of months before Daniel returned.
Whatever came first….
He leaned forward and took my hand, stroking it with his thumb and opening the floodgates. “Only if you want my mouth on your pussy.”
“Let’s go.”
The ride home couldn’t come fast enough. Chase kept me on edge and tormented. A light brush on the thigh here. A suggestive promise of what’s to come there. Smoldering green and gold eyes everywhere.
I should’ve been concerned about him keeping focus on the road, but I was too damned horny to care. ‘Celibate for ten years, living in an orgy house’ horny. I needed it, and I needed it now.
We were a house away from mine when I noticed the car. An unfamiliar red Saab was parked there, and my first thought was, Whomever the hell it is better leave before I boot their ass down the steps. Unless it was a Girl Scout. Oh, please, don’t be a Girl Scout. I’d never be able to turn one of those away. Was it cookie season?
“Who’s that?” he asked as we pulled into the driveway.
“I have no idea.” There was no one standing at the front door, and that made me nervous.
Chase parked next to the Saab. It was empty. “Stay here, Jillian.” He held out his hand. “Give me your keys.”
“Chase, it’s my house. I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not.”
I sighed. “Fine.” I pulled my house keys out of my purse and handed them to him.
“Lock the doors and stay here until I come back.”
I locked the doors but cracked the window so I could hear something. The thought of someone either wandering outside or inside my house freaked me out big time, but I didn’t want anything to happen to Chase over it. If anything, we should be calling the cops to check it out.
I watched him go up and around the back, not liking it one bit when I lost sight of him. I bounced my legs and tapped my fingertips together. I could not handle this waiting. If Chase was not back in—
I heard a shout and then another, and the next thing I knew I was darting to the house, phone in hand, ready to dial the authorities.
The living room light flicked on right as I came up to the door, allowing me to see inside. What the motherfucking fuck? I banged on the front door since Chase had my keys and I couldn’t get in. I could have just gone around to the back, but I wasn’t thinking clearly because I was so frickin’ livid.
Chase opened the door, not looking much happier than me. “Jillian, I told you to wait, dammit.”
“I thought you were in trouble,” I said, pushing past and zeroing in on my target. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“You know him?” Chase pointed to the man stretched out on my couch, shoes off, hands interlocked behind his head, acting as if he owned the joint.
“Chase, this is my ex-husband, Mike.” I clenched my fists. “Mike, why are you sitting in my house in the dark? Are you trying to give me a damned heart attack?” My chest suddenly did go into overdrive as a thought flitted into my mind. “Oh, my God. Is everything okay with Daniel?”
“He’s fine.” He waved his hand. “And it wasn’t dark when I got here. I must have fallen asleep waiting for
you.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“Just a few while I was waiting for you. And who’s this kid?” His slurring indicated that it was more like a few of a few.
Argh. My lust was so far gone it was like it’d never existed. Mike was the ultimate anti-aphrodisiac. I was so pissed off. I couldn’t in good conscious kick him out to endanger others, and I couldn’t let Chase stay in the same house as him. I wanted to pull my hair out.
This is not happening right now.
“He’s a friend of mine,” I told Mike. I grabbed Chase’s arm and whispered, “Can we please talk outside?” I saw his jaw tick as he glared at Mike, but he looked at me and nodded. “I’m sorry, Chase.”
We went down to the driveway for some privacy. I wasn’t sure exactly what to say, but I wanted to apologize again, even though I had nothing to do with Mike barging in.
“Does your ex come over like this a lot?”
“No. In fact, after the divorce, I barely saw him at all. It’s just been recently… He’s been picking up some of his things that were stored here. I have no idea what he’s doing here tonight.”
“How’d he get in?”
“Um, he still has a key.” I looked up toward the house. “It was never an issue before, but now I know I need to get it back. Or change the locks.”
I saw that jaw tick again. “Asking for it back seems the most logical.”
“I know.” None of this was Chase’s business, but I felt strange about it anyway. Why should I care what he thinks about another man in my house? I could have a reverse harem if I wanted one. “Look, again, I’m really sorry this happened, but I need to go see what he wants, and I can’t let him drive. It’s also probably not the best thing for you to be there when I talk to him. Please understand?”
I felt bad… to an extent. I’d done my part letting Chase know about my past, basically holding up a neon sign with an arrow pointed down that read: Baggage claimed here.
