We talk to one relative after the next. I keep my smile fixed on the whole time. But it gets harder with every sideways comment. Every aunt who asks whether I signed my divorce papers yet. Or every uncle who sizes up Jason appraisingly and congratulates me on finding a nice young doctor, of all people.
“I’m sorry,” I keep apologizing to him, in between every awkward ramble of this type. “My family is so shallow. It’s like all they care about are appearances. Is it appropriate for me to date again so soon? Is the guy I’m seeing impressive enough to care about?” I groan under my breath. Only my cousins avoided falling into this trap—they seemed genuinely happy to meet Jason and shake his hand without any awkward weird sideways compliments.
“It’s okay.” He hugs me one-armed around the waist. “Everyone’s family has their thing. Besides, you don’t seem anything like them to me. At least, not in terms of being shallow or obsessed with my job.” His eyes darken with humor. “Aside from the fact that you think it makes for sexy roleplay.”
I laugh and elbow him gently, but I can’t resist smirking. “Well, it’s hardly my fault if it does. Everyone has a doctor fetish, right?” Still, deep down, I wonder if he’s right. If I really am as different from my family as I hope to be. Maybe I’m just like them after all. For one thing, it did improve my opinion of him tenfold when I found out he was a doctor. I hadn’t been planning to ever call him again after our one-night stand. Then I woke up in his hospital bed, and suddenly I was fine with seeing him again, with maybe even starting to date. Or at least hanging out more often and hooking up way more than just that once.
My stomach churns uncomfortably. Am I just as shallow as they all are?
“Naomi.” Jason catches my eye, like he’s sensing my train of thought. And maybe he is. After all, in just the short time that we’ve known each other, he’s gotten better at reading my moods than just about anyone I’ve ever met. “Stop worrying. You’re overthinking this.”
“You’re right.” I force a smile. But really, there’s another worry nagging at the back of my mind. That harried, worried looking girl who appeared in my shop the other day, checking every direction before she crept up to the counter to pick up her flowers. Angel Robinson. Who was she? Who is she to Jason?
Part of me can’t help wanting to know. But another, bigger part, keeps telling me to keep my stupid mouth shut. If I ask too many questions, I could ruin a good thing. I need to stop overthinking this, like Jason keeps saying. Just live in the moment and enjoy it.
Jason takes my hand and squeezes it gently. “C’mon,” he whispers. “I know just how to take your mind off all this.”
“Oh really?” I arch an eyebrow, trailing after him toward the house. “How do you propose we do that, by skipping out of here early?”
“Not exactly…” He glances from me up to the house and back again. “Want to show me your room?” he asks, voice low enough that nobody around us can overhear.
Still, I flush bright red anyway, and my heart rate doubles. “With all these people around?” I hiss, though I’m giggling at the idea, too. “No way, we’d get caught.”
“That just makes it even hotter.” He winks.
“You’re crazy,” I murmur. But I take his hand more firmly anyway and tug him toward the house.
“Damn right,” he says as I draw him inside and through the basement, toward the stairs up to the main floor. “Crazy for you.”
I snort. “Does that line always work for you?”
“What else would you call it, if you spent all night unable to sleep because you kept fantasizing about someone, wishing they were there with you, wanting to feel their body against yours…”
“Shh,” I hiss again, still laughing, especially as I drag him hurriedly through the living and family rooms. There are relatives everywhere, younger cousins winding between our legs and uncles and aunts and friends of my cousin sprawled around the furniture. But we manage to catch a break in the busy action to slip upstairs to the second floor, and up there it’s a lot quieter. Just my parents’ bedroom, the guest room, and down the hall at the end, my own room. We sneak inside, and Jason immediately starts poking around my dresser.
“Was this your childhood bedroom?” he asks, eying the display of stuffed animals on my desk.
“Yes,” I admit, blushing as he moves from the stuffed animals over to my collection of boy band posters.
He turns around with a single eyebrow arched, pointing to one poster of a famous boy band. “Which one did you fantasize about at night?”
I laugh, though my eyes flash as I shut the door behind us. “That’s a secret.” There’s no lock, but Jason solves that by crossing the room to take me in his arms and pin me against it. I guess that works as an effective bar to anyone else opening the door.
“Hmm… No way I could lure this secret out of you?” He arches an eyebrow, and then, without further warning, his lips are on me, kissing my jaw, my neck, his hands running down my waist to pin me against the door. I slide my hands down his chest, savoring the feel of his hard muscles beneath my fingertips, the sculpted plane of his chest and his abs.
He arches into me, and I gasp against his mouth before I arch back into him, grinding my hips against his. I can already feel the rock-hard press of his cock against my belly, somehow even thicker than I remember him feeling. I run my hands down his chest until I reach his crotch, and I trace the bulge through his jeans, running my fingers along the sides of his thick cock.
He draws back just far enough to grin at me, eyes full of mischief, and something else. Something darker, more intense. Pure, animal need. “Can you feel how hard you make me, Naomi?” he murmurs. “Can you feel how much I want you?” He arches his hips against me again, and I respond in kind, my hands sliding up to his waistband and then below, even as he pins me against the door.
One hand of his runs down my side to the hem of my dress, which he hitches up in one hand so he can slide his other up the back of my thighs to my ass. He finds me in a lacy thong, barely-there underwear. The kind I’ve learned to wear anytime I’m about to see him.
He chuckles softly and lowers his lips to mine. “I see you’re ready for me,” he whispers, before he kisses me again, in a sharp, hungry way. “Now let’s see if you’re as eager as I am…” He slips his hand lower, between my thighs, and strokes me through the thin fabric of my panties.
Even through the fabric, I know he can tell that I’m already soaked through. I gasp a little, still, at the sensation of his thick, strong finger dragging between the folds of my pussy, the fabric adding an extra catch of tension there in a way that sends a thrill through my nerves.
“Definitely soaked. My naughty girl doesn’t disappoint.” He grins and leans down to nip and suck at the edge of my ear, and I moan softly against him.
“I’ve been thinking about you too,” I admit in a whisper, even as I reach between us to start undoing his jeans. “Thinking about how much I want you inside me.”
“I’ve missed you, Naomi.” He traces my jaw, feathers my neck with kisses.
I finish undoing his jeans and push them down a little, just enough to free his cock. They fall around his knees, and I go to work on his boxers next.
He chuckles against my jawline, and the vibration makes my whole body shiver, my belly curling with want. “You really are eager today, aren’t you?”
“I had trouble sleeping afterward last night, too,” I admit, flashing a glance up at him. “When I finally managed to sleep, I dreamt about you…”
His smile widens. “And what did you dream?” He keeps kissing me, softly, and alternating between the kisses with gentle little nips at my skin just below my ear, a flash of teeth that makes me shiver with desire.
“I dreamt about you pinning me up against the wall and fucking me,” I breathe, and with that, I push his boxers down next, and slide my hands up to wrap them around the thick shaft of his cock.
“Well. That sounds like a dream I could fulfill, dirty girl.” H
e spreads my legs and pushes me back against the door. Then with one hand, he hooks his thumb under my underwear, and tugs, letting it fall between us to the ground. I step out of it eagerly, still keeping my body pressed to his as much as I can.
He hikes my skirt up again, and this time, when he pins me against the wall once more, I raise one leg to wrap it around his waist. His bare cock slides against my belly, and I shiver. But he pauses me and reaches down into the pocket of his jeans first.
“Patience, naughty.” He winks at me. In response, I take the condom from his hands and tear open the packet with my teeth. His eyebrows rise, but he stands back, hands spread, and lets me put it on him myself. I unroll it slowly along his length, though not before I lean down to quickly lick at the tip of his shaft with my tongue, just once, teasing, tasting him. I finish unrolling the condom along his shaft, then, and he catches my waist in both hands and lifts me off the floor before he pins my shoulders against the door this time.