“That was a good second try,” I said. “What do you think the third’ll be like?”
She smiled. “Probably even better.”
As I leaned in, I wondered briefly if she wasn’t a bit less enthusiastic than I would’ve expected. She was generally so free with her breathtaking grins, so open with her excitement about poetry or about Gretchen. Why was she giving me that small smile and not a huge one?
I lost my train of thought as her arms snaked around my neck. My kisses growing more urgent, I reached for her face, her nape, her back—touching every part of her I could reach without going too far.
Jaz grabbed my hand and dragged it to her heat. The message was clear: no need to stop myself. She had no worries about me going too far.
I backed her against the counter, one hand reaching to palm her ass, the other cupping her where she wanted me to. Her hips bucked when I made contact there, and she stroked my arm before shrugging off her jacket. Yes, keep going, take everything off. I wanted all of her, here and now and all at once—anything and everything that she might be willing to give me.
For the moment she failed to read my thoughts, though, keeping the rest of her clothes on. I pushed my palm against her over her jeans, grinding against her thigh at the same time. Being so close to the realization of my fantasies, I couldn’t have prevented the unconscious movement even if I’d wanted to.
I threw myself into kissing her again, driving against her—but a
s much as I wanted to keep going, I still needed to figure out what exactly she wanted.
Reluctantly, I pulled away enough to catch my breath. “What would you like to do?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Her eyes had an odd glint to them. “I’m your sex toy for the night, aren’t I?”
How could I tell her I was completely and utterly at her mercy? “Are you more into giving first?” I squeezed her ass again, savoring the ripe firmness of it. “Or taking?”
“Whatever you’d like… Dr. Erwin.” There was that look again, the one telling me something wasn’t quite right.
I took half a step back, peering at her. “Everything’s okay, Jaz?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be okay?” She forced a smile. Not a grin.
And she said everything was okay. If she was really on the same page as me, wouldn’t she have said everything was amazing?
My arousal waned as I tried to figure out the problem. I wouldn’t go any further with this until I had a better sense of what was going on in Jaz’s head.
Before I could question her any further, my phone went off with Beethoven’s fifth.
Jaz jumped at the sound. “You want to get that?”
“Not really. I’d rather to get back to where we just were. Can we do that?”
“It might be something important.”
“It can wait.” I caressed her ass. “You seem like you’re kind of on the fence here, or am I imagining that?”
“All in your head.” She trailed a finger down my arm. “I’m a hundred and ten percent into this. But I do think you should pick that up.”
“Why?” Was she trying to get out of this? She kept saying she was into what we were doing—but in that case, why was she so concerned about my phone?
“You never know who it could be,” she said.
“Fine.” I moved to the other end of the kitchen and yanked my phone out of my pocket, nearly throwing it across the room with the violence of the movement. I had every intention of just looking at the caller ID and putting the phone away. No one and nothing was important enough to take me away from what I was doing now.
I got the phone in my hand, the caller ID on the screen… and my stomach dropped.
My face must’ve shown my dismay, because Jaz instantly became concerned. “What, Faye? Who is it?”
My voice was small, even scared. “It’s Amanda.”
* * *